My son is a grown man! He has not lived at home much since he first moved out the summer he was 17 years old. He has worked at a variety of jobs since he was 13 years old and found out that working equaled having his own money, equaled never having to ask his parents for finances; and to this day he never once has, even during his college days when his student loan was misplaced by the government and he had to go dumpster diving for months to have enough to eat. He has definitely learned how to live in times of plenty and tines of want with little help from us. For many years now he has survived on part time employment and selling his paintings, but recently he has been working full time after a period of unemployment. After a month of this full time employment he has come up with a brilliant concept....drum roll...wait for it....are you ready to learn this amazing concept?
Well, here it is: if you work full time you can actually make enough money to save for taxes, health care plans and student loan payments, as well as put some in the bank for the future!
So, are you blown right out of the water by this amazing idea?
Sigh....artist brain....my son has a bad case of it. He is the kindest, gentlest, happiest soul on the planet. He loves life. He cares for others, sometimes to his own detriment. He constantly expresses his love for his parents and grandparents. He is generous with his time and possessions. He has more good friends than anyone else I know.
He is also an absent minded artist who cannot keep track of practical daily details no matter how hard he tries. (To be fair, he inherited a certain amount of that from his somewhat absent minded dad.). The logic behind the wonderful world of financial planning has completely escaped him despite our best efforts as he was growing up to teach him the realities of paying bills and saving money. (To be fair, the kid grew up poverty stricken for most of his life with us and probably learned more about creative daily financial juggling than developing a long term savings plan.)
So, he is approaching his forties and I am shaking my head at his most recent “revelation” that working full time would be more financially viable for him than working part time.
Well duh....ya’ think? Hahahahaha Too funny!
Being able to pay off his latest US income tax bill in two payments because of his current full time hours of work seems to have grabbed his attention and fired his imagination as to the possibilities for helping himself by keeping these full time hours going on his next job!
I love my son with all my heart, truly I do. I am proud of him for the way he has sustained himself during the lean times, but I cannot help but laugh at his recent discovery. I am also wondering how long it will be before he forgets all about it again after this temporary full time job comes to an end.
So, I have two men in my life with varying degrees of Artist Brain, both needing help keeping track of wallets, keys, flight itineraries, payment due dates.....aaaaaargh! At least only one of them still lives at home! Hallelujah!
Sunday, June 30, 2019
Saturday, June 29, 2019
So Grateful the New York Trip Was Last Year!
I have been reading over the latest communication from my son and remembering all the fun we had together in NYC a year ago. How wonderful that the trip was last year as if we had waited to go this June I would have been too physically incapacitated to do the miles and miles of walking we did to get around the city. Whew! We prayed about going, the money arrived unexpectedly to finance the excursion, my hip was working, my husband's general health was good enough to allow him to do all the things he wanted to do there, our son's work schedule was such that he had lots of time off to show us around. The whole trip was darned near perfection for the three of us!
I got thinking about this because this evening a friend sent me a recent photo of herself with her oldest son and I started missing my son rather a lot. NYC is just SO darned far away and none of us can afford to get together very often. My son will soon be in Vancouver for a week of business he has to accomplish, but between his busyness and our huge car repair bills, we won't be able to see each other this time when he is in Canada. We were day dreaming about being able to fly from here to Vancouver to have lunch together, then leaving him to do his business and ourselves fly home again. hahahaha Maybe when my husband gets working again we will be able to make more travel plans. This is going to be a very long summer with no holiday travelling per se. The hoped for trip to Calgary in August at some point, so that my husband can have a short camping trip in the mountains with his buddies, will stretch the finances and I have to admit that spending that 3 or 4 days caring for my parents doth not a holiday make. Oh well, it is a change of scenery at least. Dad is sounding so very old and tired now during our phone calls that I know I must make the effort to get out there at least once again before winter returns.
Sunday church is on summer schedule now and starts at 10am, a whole hour earlier than usual. Once I get used to getting going earlier in the morning, I quite enjoy the 10am change. It gives us lots of time to enjoy the rest of the sunny days of summer. Oh....look at the time....if I have to get up earlier then I need to get to bed earlier as well. Nighty night!
I got thinking about this because this evening a friend sent me a recent photo of herself with her oldest son and I started missing my son rather a lot. NYC is just SO darned far away and none of us can afford to get together very often. My son will soon be in Vancouver for a week of business he has to accomplish, but between his busyness and our huge car repair bills, we won't be able to see each other this time when he is in Canada. We were day dreaming about being able to fly from here to Vancouver to have lunch together, then leaving him to do his business and ourselves fly home again. hahahaha Maybe when my husband gets working again we will be able to make more travel plans. This is going to be a very long summer with no holiday travelling per se. The hoped for trip to Calgary in August at some point, so that my husband can have a short camping trip in the mountains with his buddies, will stretch the finances and I have to admit that spending that 3 or 4 days caring for my parents doth not a holiday make. Oh well, it is a change of scenery at least. Dad is sounding so very old and tired now during our phone calls that I know I must make the effort to get out there at least once again before winter returns.
Sunday church is on summer schedule now and starts at 10am, a whole hour earlier than usual. Once I get used to getting going earlier in the morning, I quite enjoy the 10am change. It gives us lots of time to enjoy the rest of the sunny days of summer. Oh....look at the time....if I have to get up earlier then I need to get to bed earlier as well. Nighty night!
Time For The Radical Dietary Change!!
Just got off the phone after a long talk with a friend from Calgary who has struggled for a couple of years now to get his blood sugar down where it needs to be. He came very close last year to losing his pilot's license because of the blood sugar rise. I told him how much I have been struggling to lose this excess weight that has shown up around my middle and he told me how he has lost a TON of weight and lowered his blood sugar simply by following his doctor's instructions in terms of his choice of carbohydrates: stop eating potatoes, bread, rice and pasta! Period! None!
He is down to just over 200 pounds in only a few months, after weighing close to 250 or even more for several years, his blood sugar has worked its way down to pre-diabetic range, he is feeling well, even his cholesterol has lowered itself very nicely without any meds to assist it.
Hmmmmmm....for myself, I rarely touch pasta, rice or potatoes, but my addiction is bread: alpine seed bread and multigrain bread to be exact. As I tracked back through my food diary while we were talking, seeking the date where I began to notice this weight gain, I discovered it coincided almost directly to when I discovered this love of seed breads. Since they tend to be lower in carbs than other whole wheat breads and I can eat more slices of those while still retaining my dedication to the correct number of carb units per meal, I have been indulging in these breads at least twice a day. Bad, bad, bad!!!! Had I bothered to take the time to figure it out before I began indulging so often in this fresh, chewy deliciousness, I would never have started eating it in the first place.
So.....in order to try to rid myself once again of these "unwanted guests of fat homesteading around my middle", as another friend puts it, I am going to get radical on the elimination of all bread products. I will start tomorrow morning at breakfast and ask God to help me be as dedicated in eliminating bread completely from my diet as I have been about eliminating other foods that are bad for diabetics. Coincidentally, I just finished the last of my stock of seed bread tonight at dinner time. Talk about a perfect time to stop eating it, right? I won't have to experience the emotional or financial "pain" of getting rid of leftover bread from the freezer!
It is worth a serious try, that is for sure. It is so interesting to me how I stopped craving desserts, pizza, burgers and fries very quickly after my diabetes diagnosis, but this desire for fresh bread has never left me. I can control the amounts per meal, but have fallen for eating those amounts at too many meals!
Here's to my new resolve to eliminate bread and to not even flirt with the potatoes, rice and pastas~Amen! I am excited to give this a try!
He is down to just over 200 pounds in only a few months, after weighing close to 250 or even more for several years, his blood sugar has worked its way down to pre-diabetic range, he is feeling well, even his cholesterol has lowered itself very nicely without any meds to assist it.
Hmmmmmm....for myself, I rarely touch pasta, rice or potatoes, but my addiction is bread: alpine seed bread and multigrain bread to be exact. As I tracked back through my food diary while we were talking, seeking the date where I began to notice this weight gain, I discovered it coincided almost directly to when I discovered this love of seed breads. Since they tend to be lower in carbs than other whole wheat breads and I can eat more slices of those while still retaining my dedication to the correct number of carb units per meal, I have been indulging in these breads at least twice a day. Bad, bad, bad!!!! Had I bothered to take the time to figure it out before I began indulging so often in this fresh, chewy deliciousness, I would never have started eating it in the first place.
So.....in order to try to rid myself once again of these "unwanted guests of fat homesteading around my middle", as another friend puts it, I am going to get radical on the elimination of all bread products. I will start tomorrow morning at breakfast and ask God to help me be as dedicated in eliminating bread completely from my diet as I have been about eliminating other foods that are bad for diabetics. Coincidentally, I just finished the last of my stock of seed bread tonight at dinner time. Talk about a perfect time to stop eating it, right? I won't have to experience the emotional or financial "pain" of getting rid of leftover bread from the freezer!
It is worth a serious try, that is for sure. It is so interesting to me how I stopped craving desserts, pizza, burgers and fries very quickly after my diabetes diagnosis, but this desire for fresh bread has never left me. I can control the amounts per meal, but have fallen for eating those amounts at too many meals!
Here's to my new resolve to eliminate bread and to not even flirt with the potatoes, rice and pastas~Amen! I am excited to give this a try!
.....DONE!
Housework completed! Hallelujah!
Now I get to spend the rest of the day battling the usual agonizing pain in my sinuses that accompanies each major cleaning spree. Blaaaaaah! Allergies, the bane of my existence all my life.
However, I am rejoicing on the fact that the work is done and I can relax for awhile.
I know my friend Nan understands why a simple task like cleaning house can be worth three blog posts, two sinus attacks and a partridge in a pear tree! She has inspired me this week to do a few extras in the midst of the usual cleaning routine and so I feel really good about my work.
Off for a blistering hot shower before the arrival of the last predicted cluster of thunderstorms for the day. Overnight we had a wicked lightning storm with huge, pounding rain drops, but my husband’s water retrieval system kept the basement floor mostly dry once again. Bless him!
Now I get to spend the rest of the day battling the usual agonizing pain in my sinuses that accompanies each major cleaning spree. Blaaaaaah! Allergies, the bane of my existence all my life.
However, I am rejoicing on the fact that the work is done and I can relax for awhile.
I know my friend Nan understands why a simple task like cleaning house can be worth three blog posts, two sinus attacks and a partridge in a pear tree! She has inspired me this week to do a few extras in the midst of the usual cleaning routine and so I feel really good about my work.
Off for a blistering hot shower before the arrival of the last predicted cluster of thunderstorms for the day. Overnight we had a wicked lightning storm with huge, pounding rain drops, but my husband’s water retrieval system kept the basement floor mostly dry once again. Bless him!
Friday, June 28, 2019
Aaaaand......
I just had to do a tad more housework after dinner tonight. I felt so good, so energized after accomplishing so much right here at home today, that I decided to do a few of tomorrow's tasks I don't enjoy as much and get them over with. The idea is that if I get done earlier tomorrow then perhaps I could be ready to attend that funeral with my husband in the afternoon. So, tonight I cleaned the stairwell and front entry, cleaned the blinds in the living room, dining room and kitchen and cleaned all the cupboard doors and dusted in the kitchen as well. Feels good and I know that it will leave me feeling ahead of the game tomorrow morning.
Received a very cool photo from my husband's sister tonight. Her husband is a ham radio operator and he just built a huge new antenna beside their house. Today he hung a Canadian flag on it to celebrate Canada Day. I told her that now none of the neighbours will dare to complain about the addition of the antenna to the neighbourhood as they would be deemed unpatriotic! hahahaha
I have a few boxing matches recording on tv, so I think I will go and watch one of them, then get to bed early so I can tackle the houswork early in the morning. My hip is improving so my mobility is as well of course. Now I have two days off from physio, but I think I will still do the "first thing in the morning" session both days so that I am not limping around for the first half of the day. It worked well last weekend so.....
My friend just contacted me from Moose Jaw to let me know the storm has arrived there, so we should get ready for it here......I was thinking of mentioning to God that I am very grateful that he has answered our prayers for rain to relieve the drought conditions, but now I think I will ask him if perhaps it wouldn't be wise to save some of that rain for later on in the summer....seems like a good idea, right? hahaha
Received a very cool photo from my husband's sister tonight. Her husband is a ham radio operator and he just built a huge new antenna beside their house. Today he hung a Canadian flag on it to celebrate Canada Day. I told her that now none of the neighbours will dare to complain about the addition of the antenna to the neighbourhood as they would be deemed unpatriotic! hahahaha
I have a few boxing matches recording on tv, so I think I will go and watch one of them, then get to bed early so I can tackle the houswork early in the morning. My hip is improving so my mobility is as well of course. Now I have two days off from physio, but I think I will still do the "first thing in the morning" session both days so that I am not limping around for the first half of the day. It worked well last weekend so.....
My friend just contacted me from Moose Jaw to let me know the storm has arrived there, so we should get ready for it here......I was thinking of mentioning to God that I am very grateful that he has answered our prayers for rain to relieve the drought conditions, but now I think I will ask him if perhaps it wouldn't be wise to save some of that rain for later on in the summer....seems like a good idea, right? hahaha
I DID IT.....FINALLY!
The fact that I am this joyous over a simple matter of getting the entire upstairs cleaned today tells you just how filthy and messy things were getting up here!!! Well, only the 3 rooms downstairs to do tomorrow and I am done for another 2 weeks, OR until the gusting prairie wind blows dust in all over everything again. To be continued..........
So, I received a notification last Friday morning that my email to the local Ministry of the Environment office, regarding the goose poo situation, had been received and would be responded to within 3 business days. Six business days later, of course I have heard nothing whatsoever, as I expected, BUT I did find out from someone else "in the know" about the geese in our area, that soon a great number of the goose families will be rounded up and relocated to a far larger wild bird sanctuary waaaaaay up north, in the hope that if they all spend their summer there as family groups, the imprint of their new surroundings will stay with them. The hope then is that they will return there next spring, rather than to their nesting grounds here. Apparently it was done a few years ago with good success. I am simply relieved to know that the problem has not gone unnoticed and is not being ignored just because, apparently, my query has! I am feeling better and picked up the poo today with much more joie de vivre than usual!
My husband and I are chuckling at ourselves. Yesterday on the way home from Moose Jaw we were trying to figure out why on earth there were so many campers and boats and RV's heading east and slowing the traffic down so much. Well DUH....not only are the kids out of school now for the summer, but it is also the Canada Day long weekend! Of COURSE people are heading out to their their cabins on the lakes and to the national park campgrounds! Obviously my husband and I are taking this "sabbatical" time of unemployment rather seriously, as we have NO idea what is going on in the world around us! haha
I was relieved today to get a notice that the men's breakfast my husband was slated to attend tomorrow morning has been postponed. He has a funeral to attend in the afternoon and that is enough for one day. The weather is muggy and warm, sultry I think is the word, so he is hiding out in the basement working on his computer set up down there and preparing the leaky spots for tonight's predicted thunderstorms. The temperature isn't that high, but the humidity is, plus the wind is starting to rise as the clouds are building up, so the conditions seem about perfect for more storms overnight. We had minimal damage here during last night's wind and rain extravaganza, mostly tree branches down around the complex, but since the trees in front of our place were torn out last year, we haven't had to worry about tree limbs smashing through our roof in the midst of storms. The large garbage bin out in the parking lot is full now of branches the maintenance crew had to pick up today with the bobcat and trailer. Some of the limbs are rather large and could have caused a lot of damage, but it appears none of the buildings or cars parked along the street suffered any.
Now that the geese are on the way out, the two wee gophers are the next hassle around here. My husband's pot of basil has been looking sickly for the past few days and this morning as he was checking it out further, he discovered the little goobers have been digging small tunnels under the plants!!! NO!!! They are the most brazen gophers we have ever seen, not the least bit afraid of people, full of joy as they race around on all the back porches, rooting about apparently in the soil around/under the plants even in the small pots! Our pot of basil is now hanging off the railing facing away from the deck. So far they have stayed out of the tomatoes, dill and spearmint. Aiiiii yiiiiii....what next??? No...wait a second...I don't really want to know what's next!! I don't think elephants live around here, but.......that'll be the next thing! Seriously, how much do you want to bet???? We've got every other animal showing up here! hahahahaha
I am looking forward to Canada Day. My husband's young cousin is coming over for tea in the afternoon and the fireworks will be set off in the park near here at 10:30pm! LOVE LOVE LOVE fireworks. The only disappointment this year is that our Egyptian friends will not be joining us to see them like they always have before, since they have moved to the west coast. Sigh.... Sigh that they are gone and sigh that they are at the west coast and we are not. Waaaah!
Gotta remember that Sunday church starts at 10am now instead of 11am. I love getting out of church so early and there is no coffee hour during the summer months, so that encourages all of us to get together in groups and go out for lunches or a coffee elsewhere. The summer patio parties also begin this coming Sunday evening with BBQ nights and dessert evenings sponsored by the various parishioners who have large and lovely back yards for us all to sit in. Looks like we will be attempting to attend 5 of the next 6 Sunday evening parties! YAY!
I am happy to have all day tomorrow to complete the cleaning project. Today I spent a longer time than planned on the upstairs because I was inspired by a friend to rip everything out from under the bathroom sink and from inside the large storage closet, toss out the unnecessary junk I have been saving for who knows what reason, and rearrange the remaining "stuff". It feels good! Tomorrow I have the joy of cleaning the dining room where the cabinets of curios are. I love dusting and arranging my pottery and Japanese knick-knacks in different ways each time I clean in there. It adds some creative process to an otherwise plebian task. Here's to tomorrow's work AND to having another night of storms that bring as little leakage to our basement as last night's storms did! YES!
So, I received a notification last Friday morning that my email to the local Ministry of the Environment office, regarding the goose poo situation, had been received and would be responded to within 3 business days. Six business days later, of course I have heard nothing whatsoever, as I expected, BUT I did find out from someone else "in the know" about the geese in our area, that soon a great number of the goose families will be rounded up and relocated to a far larger wild bird sanctuary waaaaaay up north, in the hope that if they all spend their summer there as family groups, the imprint of their new surroundings will stay with them. The hope then is that they will return there next spring, rather than to their nesting grounds here. Apparently it was done a few years ago with good success. I am simply relieved to know that the problem has not gone unnoticed and is not being ignored just because, apparently, my query has! I am feeling better and picked up the poo today with much more joie de vivre than usual!
My husband and I are chuckling at ourselves. Yesterday on the way home from Moose Jaw we were trying to figure out why on earth there were so many campers and boats and RV's heading east and slowing the traffic down so much. Well DUH....not only are the kids out of school now for the summer, but it is also the Canada Day long weekend! Of COURSE people are heading out to their their cabins on the lakes and to the national park campgrounds! Obviously my husband and I are taking this "sabbatical" time of unemployment rather seriously, as we have NO idea what is going on in the world around us! haha
I was relieved today to get a notice that the men's breakfast my husband was slated to attend tomorrow morning has been postponed. He has a funeral to attend in the afternoon and that is enough for one day. The weather is muggy and warm, sultry I think is the word, so he is hiding out in the basement working on his computer set up down there and preparing the leaky spots for tonight's predicted thunderstorms. The temperature isn't that high, but the humidity is, plus the wind is starting to rise as the clouds are building up, so the conditions seem about perfect for more storms overnight. We had minimal damage here during last night's wind and rain extravaganza, mostly tree branches down around the complex, but since the trees in front of our place were torn out last year, we haven't had to worry about tree limbs smashing through our roof in the midst of storms. The large garbage bin out in the parking lot is full now of branches the maintenance crew had to pick up today with the bobcat and trailer. Some of the limbs are rather large and could have caused a lot of damage, but it appears none of the buildings or cars parked along the street suffered any.
Now that the geese are on the way out, the two wee gophers are the next hassle around here. My husband's pot of basil has been looking sickly for the past few days and this morning as he was checking it out further, he discovered the little goobers have been digging small tunnels under the plants!!! NO!!! They are the most brazen gophers we have ever seen, not the least bit afraid of people, full of joy as they race around on all the back porches, rooting about apparently in the soil around/under the plants even in the small pots! Our pot of basil is now hanging off the railing facing away from the deck. So far they have stayed out of the tomatoes, dill and spearmint. Aiiiii yiiiiii....what next??? No...wait a second...I don't really want to know what's next!! I don't think elephants live around here, but.......that'll be the next thing! Seriously, how much do you want to bet???? We've got every other animal showing up here! hahahahaha
I am looking forward to Canada Day. My husband's young cousin is coming over for tea in the afternoon and the fireworks will be set off in the park near here at 10:30pm! LOVE LOVE LOVE fireworks. The only disappointment this year is that our Egyptian friends will not be joining us to see them like they always have before, since they have moved to the west coast. Sigh.... Sigh that they are gone and sigh that they are at the west coast and we are not. Waaaah!
Gotta remember that Sunday church starts at 10am now instead of 11am. I love getting out of church so early and there is no coffee hour during the summer months, so that encourages all of us to get together in groups and go out for lunches or a coffee elsewhere. The summer patio parties also begin this coming Sunday evening with BBQ nights and dessert evenings sponsored by the various parishioners who have large and lovely back yards for us all to sit in. Looks like we will be attempting to attend 5 of the next 6 Sunday evening parties! YAY!
I am happy to have all day tomorrow to complete the cleaning project. Today I spent a longer time than planned on the upstairs because I was inspired by a friend to rip everything out from under the bathroom sink and from inside the large storage closet, toss out the unnecessary junk I have been saving for who knows what reason, and rearrange the remaining "stuff". It feels good! Tomorrow I have the joy of cleaning the dining room where the cabinets of curios are. I love dusting and arranging my pottery and Japanese knick-knacks in different ways each time I clean in there. It adds some creative process to an otherwise plebian task. Here's to tomorrow's work AND to having another night of storms that bring as little leakage to our basement as last night's storms did! YES!
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Preparing For A Possible Storm Overnight!
The crazy early summer weather has begun once again for the western provinces. Wow....what nutsy cuckoo things have been going on in terms of incredible rainfall in some areas, unseasonal heat in others, and tonight, a series of supercells that are making their way here after bringing serious flooding and large hail to Medicine Hat Alberta earlier today. Poor Medicine Hat got trounced badly by flooding and large hailstones from this storm system that will move through Regina and area overnight before lining up some tornado possibilities closer to the intersection of the SK/Manitoba borders with the USA.
My husband and I decided that, considering the flooding possibilities for our basement should we receive anywhere near the 55cm-75cm of rain that fell farther to the west of us, he would sleep down there tonight. He is up on a platform bed and we surrounded every crack, former crack and possible future cracks along the basement walls with thick, absorbent towels to pad our our all ready existing system of wicking laces, plastic funnels and roaster pans. There are two mops and pails sitting at the bottom of the basement stairs, as well as a second stack of towels, should they become necessary to use. I am rather expecting a wake up call from him around 3am to come help mop up water. We have been there before.....
However, who knows if the storm will even reach us? Even if it does, will it have the ability left to drop that much rain on us? While we are supposedly right in the middle of the system as far as geographical area, it is just as possible it will decide to stay south of us. That has happened many times previously. Guess we'll just see what happens starting in a couple of hours. At least we feel as prepared as we can be. I am getting myself "mentally prepared" for the possibility of heading for the basement, not for water mopping up, but for protecting myself in case of a tornado. It amazes me how we can be living in a prime tornado belt here, yet have seen so few of any consequence in the years we have lived in it! Thankful we are, but you just know that one of these fine days it will be our turn, maybe this summer, maybe a few years from now, but we know that eventually....... Law of Averages........
So, that is how we spent the latter part of our evening!
We had an excellent day today! Woke up to a cheery email from our son. He is being WELL PAID at the moment for his 6 day a week workweek and yesterday he paid off his remaining US tax bill and paid for his flight back to Canada for a week in August. That is best news he could give us. He found out he can renew his passport from the office in NYC, so can concentrate on his other business when he is in Vancouver. Whew!! His other good news is that his current lady friend is quite wonderful and they are getting on well. Not that we have any hopes of anything long term for him, knowing his track record, but for now he is less lonely and more focused. We love this woman! hahaha
We were in Moose Jaw shortly after 8am for what is hopefully the last of the car repairs until the strut units have to be replaced next spring...praying they can indeed hang on that long! SO EXPENSIVE!! (I spent a few minutes this afternoon looking at my husband's EI payment schedule, the deposit of my GST/PST rebate into my account next week and am thanking God with all my heart that we will be able to make the nearly $1400 car repair payment without leaving ourselves without groceries and utility payments in July! Hallelujah!!)
Our breakfast at the National Cafe was good and affordably priced. They cut fresh potatoes into thin slices there, rather than serve hashbrowns, so they are not greasy and no salt was added; perfect for the two of us. Then we walked to the library so my husband could do some writing and research until the car was ready.
We were shocked when we got a phone call just before 11am that the work was completed, we could pick up our car right away. By 12:30am we were home eating lunch! How wonderful: it meant we were able to take all our empty bottles and cans to recycling. The $51.05 we received in recycling rebates is needed and much appreciated right now.
Dinner tonight with our friends was FANTASTIC!!!!! Oh my, if you like Indian style food, but can't bring yourself to eat the warm/hot herbs and spices, then try Nepalese food instead. We have a brand new Nepalese restaurant in Regina and the food and service are both wonderful!! O my....AND SO INEXPENSIVE!!!!! (Not that it mattered to us tonight because one of the friends was desperate to pick up the tab for us all...THANK YOU Brother Jerry!) We were celebrating that the other friend has finally completed her PhD!! She has spent years on this project as time has permitted in around her other incredibly busy job schedule, but defended her thesis very well a few weeks ago. Congratulations Rev. Dr. Canon Archdeacon Cathy!!! WAY TO GO!
The name of the restaurant is Ginger Garlic and is located at 230 Winnipeg Street North. The manager used to manage at Caraway Grill and also in Calgary at a Nepalese restaurant my husband and I frequented every trip there for years before the owners returned to Nepal and closed the place. If you want wonderful Nepalese food, lightly spiced and most delicious, do give this restaurant a try! Entree prices run from $6.99 to $13.50 and the portions are good. I ordered the Black Daal and it was delicious. At first, when it arrived piping hot, I couldn't get a lot of flavour and was feeling disappointed, but after cooling for about 5 minutes, the full flavour of the daal mixed with thinly sliced carrots and onions hit me and wow....it was fantastic! There were a few cumin seeds in the rice, but just enough to give a touch of flavour to what I find to be usually bland white restaurant rice. The lamb sekwa was cooked perfectly and tasted like proper lamb, not old mutton...so tender! It was accompanied by slices of daikon pickle that had just a bit of a kick for heat, but compared to most Indian dishes, they were pretty mild. The chicken curry was lovely for such a mild flavour, the pakoras came sliced into manageable pieces for sharing and the tamarind sauce for them, a sauce I usually don't care for, had a different twist on the flavour that not only made it palatable, but quite delicious. We ordered chicken momo...like Japanese Gyoza and stuffed with a mix of ground chicken and cabbage and onion with the most incredible thick, pasty sauce to spread of the top. The grilled tomato chutney for the lamb dishes was very good, the Manchurian fusion dish of large chunks of red pepper and egg plant was also delicious. I don't care for the thick, gooey sauces that accompany most Manchurian dishes, but I could taste the peppers and eggplant without the flavour of the sauce obscuring the flavour of the vegetables. The naan was fresh and tasty and not covered in oil. We were far too full to even attempt a dessert, but the chai was a nice way to end our evening around the table. We commented afterward that the sauces that accompanied each dish were so diverse for textures, colours and flavours. What a treat.
Oh, AND the menu includes an ingredients list for most every dish!!! For example, the Manchurian dishes all have corn flour in them. My husband cannot eat any corn products, thus he knew just from reading the menu what he had to stay away from. Wheat flour, msg, veggie content, which herbs and spices....all listed in the menu! What a fantastic "gift" to the patrons with allergies!
Before finding our impending storm report, my husband made an attempt to watch a competitve cooking show with me on tv, but he only lasted about 15 minutes. He gets SO stressed by the time limits imposed on the cooks, on the difficulties of their assigned tasks, that he gets himself in quite a flap and can't watch to the end of the programme. hahahaha He actually finds it more difficult to watch competitive cooking programmes than boxing matches!! I find that to be hilarious and watching HIM watching the cooking competitions is more fun for me than the competitions themselves. hahahahaha
So, a lovely day once again. When I woke up this morning and was racing around to get ready to get our car to the shop on time, what struck me very hard is that the odd feeling I have been experiencing so often over the past year has an actual name: it is "happiness". I have not been happy like this for a very long time. I don't know how long this will last, but while it does I am going to enjoy every moment of it. I feel like we are exactly where God wants us to be in life at the moment. There will be changes, there will be less happy times in the future, BUT for now I am living one day at a time and those days for the most part are quite wonderful. Even the difficult days are not ruining my happiness right now. Thank you Lord and thank you friends! I am grateful.
My husband and I decided that, considering the flooding possibilities for our basement should we receive anywhere near the 55cm-75cm of rain that fell farther to the west of us, he would sleep down there tonight. He is up on a platform bed and we surrounded every crack, former crack and possible future cracks along the basement walls with thick, absorbent towels to pad our our all ready existing system of wicking laces, plastic funnels and roaster pans. There are two mops and pails sitting at the bottom of the basement stairs, as well as a second stack of towels, should they become necessary to use. I am rather expecting a wake up call from him around 3am to come help mop up water. We have been there before.....
However, who knows if the storm will even reach us? Even if it does, will it have the ability left to drop that much rain on us? While we are supposedly right in the middle of the system as far as geographical area, it is just as possible it will decide to stay south of us. That has happened many times previously. Guess we'll just see what happens starting in a couple of hours. At least we feel as prepared as we can be. I am getting myself "mentally prepared" for the possibility of heading for the basement, not for water mopping up, but for protecting myself in case of a tornado. It amazes me how we can be living in a prime tornado belt here, yet have seen so few of any consequence in the years we have lived in it! Thankful we are, but you just know that one of these fine days it will be our turn, maybe this summer, maybe a few years from now, but we know that eventually....... Law of Averages........
So, that is how we spent the latter part of our evening!
We had an excellent day today! Woke up to a cheery email from our son. He is being WELL PAID at the moment for his 6 day a week workweek and yesterday he paid off his remaining US tax bill and paid for his flight back to Canada for a week in August. That is best news he could give us. He found out he can renew his passport from the office in NYC, so can concentrate on his other business when he is in Vancouver. Whew!! His other good news is that his current lady friend is quite wonderful and they are getting on well. Not that we have any hopes of anything long term for him, knowing his track record, but for now he is less lonely and more focused. We love this woman! hahaha
We were in Moose Jaw shortly after 8am for what is hopefully the last of the car repairs until the strut units have to be replaced next spring...praying they can indeed hang on that long! SO EXPENSIVE!! (I spent a few minutes this afternoon looking at my husband's EI payment schedule, the deposit of my GST/PST rebate into my account next week and am thanking God with all my heart that we will be able to make the nearly $1400 car repair payment without leaving ourselves without groceries and utility payments in July! Hallelujah!!)
Our breakfast at the National Cafe was good and affordably priced. They cut fresh potatoes into thin slices there, rather than serve hashbrowns, so they are not greasy and no salt was added; perfect for the two of us. Then we walked to the library so my husband could do some writing and research until the car was ready.
We were shocked when we got a phone call just before 11am that the work was completed, we could pick up our car right away. By 12:30am we were home eating lunch! How wonderful: it meant we were able to take all our empty bottles and cans to recycling. The $51.05 we received in recycling rebates is needed and much appreciated right now.
Dinner tonight with our friends was FANTASTIC!!!!! Oh my, if you like Indian style food, but can't bring yourself to eat the warm/hot herbs and spices, then try Nepalese food instead. We have a brand new Nepalese restaurant in Regina and the food and service are both wonderful!! O my....AND SO INEXPENSIVE!!!!! (Not that it mattered to us tonight because one of the friends was desperate to pick up the tab for us all...THANK YOU Brother Jerry!) We were celebrating that the other friend has finally completed her PhD!! She has spent years on this project as time has permitted in around her other incredibly busy job schedule, but defended her thesis very well a few weeks ago. Congratulations Rev. Dr. Canon Archdeacon Cathy!!! WAY TO GO!
The name of the restaurant is Ginger Garlic and is located at 230 Winnipeg Street North. The manager used to manage at Caraway Grill and also in Calgary at a Nepalese restaurant my husband and I frequented every trip there for years before the owners returned to Nepal and closed the place. If you want wonderful Nepalese food, lightly spiced and most delicious, do give this restaurant a try! Entree prices run from $6.99 to $13.50 and the portions are good. I ordered the Black Daal and it was delicious. At first, when it arrived piping hot, I couldn't get a lot of flavour and was feeling disappointed, but after cooling for about 5 minutes, the full flavour of the daal mixed with thinly sliced carrots and onions hit me and wow....it was fantastic! There were a few cumin seeds in the rice, but just enough to give a touch of flavour to what I find to be usually bland white restaurant rice. The lamb sekwa was cooked perfectly and tasted like proper lamb, not old mutton...so tender! It was accompanied by slices of daikon pickle that had just a bit of a kick for heat, but compared to most Indian dishes, they were pretty mild. The chicken curry was lovely for such a mild flavour, the pakoras came sliced into manageable pieces for sharing and the tamarind sauce for them, a sauce I usually don't care for, had a different twist on the flavour that not only made it palatable, but quite delicious. We ordered chicken momo...like Japanese Gyoza and stuffed with a mix of ground chicken and cabbage and onion with the most incredible thick, pasty sauce to spread of the top. The grilled tomato chutney for the lamb dishes was very good, the Manchurian fusion dish of large chunks of red pepper and egg plant was also delicious. I don't care for the thick, gooey sauces that accompany most Manchurian dishes, but I could taste the peppers and eggplant without the flavour of the sauce obscuring the flavour of the vegetables. The naan was fresh and tasty and not covered in oil. We were far too full to even attempt a dessert, but the chai was a nice way to end our evening around the table. We commented afterward that the sauces that accompanied each dish were so diverse for textures, colours and flavours. What a treat.
Oh, AND the menu includes an ingredients list for most every dish!!! For example, the Manchurian dishes all have corn flour in them. My husband cannot eat any corn products, thus he knew just from reading the menu what he had to stay away from. Wheat flour, msg, veggie content, which herbs and spices....all listed in the menu! What a fantastic "gift" to the patrons with allergies!
Before finding our impending storm report, my husband made an attempt to watch a competitve cooking show with me on tv, but he only lasted about 15 minutes. He gets SO stressed by the time limits imposed on the cooks, on the difficulties of their assigned tasks, that he gets himself in quite a flap and can't watch to the end of the programme. hahahaha He actually finds it more difficult to watch competitive cooking programmes than boxing matches!! I find that to be hilarious and watching HIM watching the cooking competitions is more fun for me than the competitions themselves. hahahahaha
So, a lovely day once again. When I woke up this morning and was racing around to get ready to get our car to the shop on time, what struck me very hard is that the odd feeling I have been experiencing so often over the past year has an actual name: it is "happiness". I have not been happy like this for a very long time. I don't know how long this will last, but while it does I am going to enjoy every moment of it. I feel like we are exactly where God wants us to be in life at the moment. There will be changes, there will be less happy times in the future, BUT for now I am living one day at a time and those days for the most part are quite wonderful. Even the difficult days are not ruining my happiness right now. Thank you Lord and thank you friends! I am grateful.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
Revamping My Schedule!
Again with all the good intentions to start cleaning house being blown out of the water today! Sigh.....
I spent the entire morning at the bank researching a huge problem that arose nearly 6 weeks ago with my bank balance. The bank folk have been doing a rather half hearted effort in helping me to find the problem, but today they did find it, AND the error was corrected! Thank goodness!! Now all is fixed up and I am happy.
When I got home my husband had some things he needed me to help with, I had to take the car to fill it with gasoline for tomorrow's trip, I had to go over to my husband's former office to deal with some issues relating to his ongoing medical coverage until he gets working again in September, so before I knew it the time had crept forward to 12:30pm and I was very sore and tired. I tried going out without my cane today and discovered I walk too quickly, even though I think I am walking slowly. The cane is the visual reminder for me to slow down! Thus a bit of pain this afternoon....dumb, dumb, dumb!
During our lunch break we finally had the chance to watch the recent Charlo/Cota boxing match we recorded on the weekend....a KO barely into the third round! Congratulations Charlo!
So....then some other issues arose that needed to be dealt with and now it is after 4pm and not a lick of housework done! No...that is not quite true: I did manage to collect the garbage bags from all the rooms in this suite and get them out to the bin, take the empty milk and coconut water cartons to my favourite dumpster diver and pay next month's rent. I sorted through some old music I am considering getting rid of and made a list of things I want to get rid of from our dishes and knickknacks in the kitchen before too much more time goes by: dishes and glasses that are so old the painted patterns are nearly worn off, a couple of coffee mugs that are cracking, worn out oven mitts and a plethora of other well used and tatty bits of this and that. I can't stand being surrounded by worn out junk, and when the poverty stricken etsy look is also getting covered with dust because I CANNOT SEEM TO FIND TIME TO DO ANY CLEANING, it is more than I can handle. Time to purge, purge, purge! Not the easiest thing to do when saddled with a hoarding husband, but I manage! haha
Tomorrow of course is car repair day #3 for this year, out of town, so no hope of accomplishing anything around here.
However, after looking at the good possibility of rain showers for the two days after that, I relaxed about the housework and moved the project mentally into those two days when I am not going to be heading out anywhere else. One bonus is that on the second day my husband will be out almost the entire day for various events and that will give me a lot of relaxed time to clean. YES!! I am hoping we can return from the car repairs in time tomorrow to take in all the bottles and cans accummulating in our basement since the only other time we can work on it together this week is the first morning of my new cleaning schedule! NOOOOOO!!! hahahaha Since my husband wants to start a basement cleanup as soon as I want to get started on cleaning the living quarters, getting rid of those bottles will be a huge help to him!
Tomorrow evening we are going out for dinner with friends, very unexpectedly and that is always a nice bonus. One of the friends is a former colleague of my husband's and the other is a mountain climbing buddy who is here visiting that former colleague. The four of us always have fun together so it is something to look forward to. We will likely either return to DarBar or go to a Nepalese restarant we have not tried before. Either way....YUMMY!! I am not going to have to cook tomorrow AT ALL! YAY!! Lunch out of town and dinner at a local restaurant. It is all wonderful! My kind of day, teehee! (Lazy sot that I am!)
We are loving the weather now that the rain has ceased. There are huge, puffy white clouds in the bright blue sky, there is a slight breeze and the temperatures are reaching the mid +20's each afternoon. The temperatures are perfect for me and I plan to enjoy every day of them prior to the soon to arrive summer heat that makes me feel kind of woozy all the time.
This is a great week!
(Soon to be greater due to a clean house! Right? Of course right!!)
I spent the entire morning at the bank researching a huge problem that arose nearly 6 weeks ago with my bank balance. The bank folk have been doing a rather half hearted effort in helping me to find the problem, but today they did find it, AND the error was corrected! Thank goodness!! Now all is fixed up and I am happy.
When I got home my husband had some things he needed me to help with, I had to take the car to fill it with gasoline for tomorrow's trip, I had to go over to my husband's former office to deal with some issues relating to his ongoing medical coverage until he gets working again in September, so before I knew it the time had crept forward to 12:30pm and I was very sore and tired. I tried going out without my cane today and discovered I walk too quickly, even though I think I am walking slowly. The cane is the visual reminder for me to slow down! Thus a bit of pain this afternoon....dumb, dumb, dumb!
During our lunch break we finally had the chance to watch the recent Charlo/Cota boxing match we recorded on the weekend....a KO barely into the third round! Congratulations Charlo!
So....then some other issues arose that needed to be dealt with and now it is after 4pm and not a lick of housework done! No...that is not quite true: I did manage to collect the garbage bags from all the rooms in this suite and get them out to the bin, take the empty milk and coconut water cartons to my favourite dumpster diver and pay next month's rent. I sorted through some old music I am considering getting rid of and made a list of things I want to get rid of from our dishes and knickknacks in the kitchen before too much more time goes by: dishes and glasses that are so old the painted patterns are nearly worn off, a couple of coffee mugs that are cracking, worn out oven mitts and a plethora of other well used and tatty bits of this and that. I can't stand being surrounded by worn out junk, and when the poverty stricken etsy look is also getting covered with dust because I CANNOT SEEM TO FIND TIME TO DO ANY CLEANING, it is more than I can handle. Time to purge, purge, purge! Not the easiest thing to do when saddled with a hoarding husband, but I manage! haha
Tomorrow of course is car repair day #3 for this year, out of town, so no hope of accomplishing anything around here.
However, after looking at the good possibility of rain showers for the two days after that, I relaxed about the housework and moved the project mentally into those two days when I am not going to be heading out anywhere else. One bonus is that on the second day my husband will be out almost the entire day for various events and that will give me a lot of relaxed time to clean. YES!! I am hoping we can return from the car repairs in time tomorrow to take in all the bottles and cans accummulating in our basement since the only other time we can work on it together this week is the first morning of my new cleaning schedule! NOOOOOO!!! hahahaha Since my husband wants to start a basement cleanup as soon as I want to get started on cleaning the living quarters, getting rid of those bottles will be a huge help to him!
Tomorrow evening we are going out for dinner with friends, very unexpectedly and that is always a nice bonus. One of the friends is a former colleague of my husband's and the other is a mountain climbing buddy who is here visiting that former colleague. The four of us always have fun together so it is something to look forward to. We will likely either return to DarBar or go to a Nepalese restarant we have not tried before. Either way....YUMMY!! I am not going to have to cook tomorrow AT ALL! YAY!! Lunch out of town and dinner at a local restaurant. It is all wonderful! My kind of day, teehee! (Lazy sot that I am!)
We are loving the weather now that the rain has ceased. There are huge, puffy white clouds in the bright blue sky, there is a slight breeze and the temperatures are reaching the mid +20's each afternoon. The temperatures are perfect for me and I plan to enjoy every day of them prior to the soon to arrive summer heat that makes me feel kind of woozy all the time.
This is a great week!
(Soon to be greater due to a clean house! Right? Of course right!!)
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
But I WANNA Clean The House!!!!
The simple fact is that I am simply having too much fun to get any work done around here this week! Sigh.....what a sad excuse for doing so little, but it is the truth.
My original plan was to clean one or two small rooms on Sunday afternoon after church to get a head start on the week and reduce the pressure to clean too much in one day once the week got started. Well.....we ended up being invited to the party after church for our friend and by the time we got home, it seemed to be too late to start any sort of serious work....particularly since my husband took it into his head that instead of me doing any cleaning it would be far more interesting to watch a couple of boxing matches with him that we had recorded the previous evening. Who am I to say "no" to spending time with my husband, right?
That meant I was all geared up to go on Monday morning, while my husband had the car to go to a breakfast meeting, leaving me stuck at home with nothing more important to do than start cleaning! Well.....I slept in, slept WAY in, then as soon as I woke up I realized there were two grocery items we absolutely had to have immediately. So, I snail paced it over to the nearest grocery store to get them after extensive morning physio. I was barely home when my husband returned from his meeting, all ready to watch a movie we have been hoping for several years would be released to some kind of movie channel and, as it just happened, WAS on a channel we only recently began receiving as part of our tv package....it was starting ten minutes after he arrived home and was part of the reason he left his meeting early to return. He didn't want to miss seeing it as soon as possible. It had been years since I had seen it, so of course I wanted to see it again: "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". I mean, who wouldn't want to see that movie again given the opportunity, right? Between watching the over two hour movie and also pausing it ever whipstitch to make lunch, have a drink, check for an important and long awaited email, and on and on, over three hours passed in the blink of an eye! It was worth it because my husband has marked it now as one of his all time favourite movies, but who wants to start cleaning house at 3:30pm when dinner has to be made and ready shortly after 5pm? Another day of cleaning lost........
So, that geared me up for this morning. My husband had an early morning meeting and all I had to do while he was gone was get showered up, eat my breakfast, do my physio, get to two banks and be home as close to 10am as possible to get going on the cleaning project. My husband arrived just as I was finally getting myself out the door to get to the banks and he confirmed that it would suit him just fine if I was running the vacuum today. Good! I arrived home to the news that Kat had called and needed me to return her call as soon as possible. That, I did! She happened to be feeling quite well today and wanted to pick me up to go for a short walk over at the lake. I wasn't about to tell her "NO!". This may be one of the rare days that she is alone, bored and feeling well enough to go out and drive. So....of course I said I would be ready in ten minutes. She picked me up and away we went to have a short walk at the lake. Considering how exhausted she is from all her illnesses and drugs and treatments, it was quite amazing to me that we made it about a quarter of the way along the lake, racing the snails and losing, the pair of us! hahaha We had to sit down twice on some nice clean benches so Kat could rest, but she did it. She had a walk today! Then we drove to Good Earth for lunch. We both enjoyed our visit very much and the lunch was delicious. Kat managed to stay awake long enough to drive me home and herself as well, but hopefully she was able to have a long nap for the afternoon. I started getting out the cleaning equipment right away as it was all ready into the afternoon hours, but realized something was not sitting right in my digestive system, so I rested on the couch for awhile, then did my afternoon physio. Eventually I was able to rid my system of the offending food item, but it was after 4pm at that point and the struggle with the food sensitivity drained my mind as badly as my body! So, another short nap led up to making a light dinner. Fortunately I felt fine after that, but my husband forbade me to start cleaning after dinner because he could see how tired I was.
That brings me to tomorrow morning. Once again my husband has a fairly early morning meeting and I think he will be able to leave the car with me so I can go back to the bank to finish up what was started today. If the pensions are in I can go and pay July's rent and get that over with, leaving us free on the weekend from having to remember to pay it when there are always more fun things than that to think about on a weekend!! My fear now is that something will prevent me from getting to the bank the second it opens and that I will have some kind of long wait once I am there. My husband casually mentioned somewhere he thinks we need to go together tomorrow afternoon.....aaaaaaargh!!!!
Thursday is "back to Moose Jaw for more car repairs" day and that will take all day. That leaves me with Friday to get started on the housework and Saturday morning to finish up as we have another funeral to attend that afternoon. At that point it will be one full week since I decided to clean our suite properly. Aiiiii yiiiii....PLEASE GOD don't let anythning else come up on Friday, or Saturday morning!
I love everything I got to do so far this week and all the people I got to visit with and enjoy, but at some point being practical about the daily home chores has got to take precedence, doesn't it?
Guess I will find out in time..........hahahahahahaha.
My original plan was to clean one or two small rooms on Sunday afternoon after church to get a head start on the week and reduce the pressure to clean too much in one day once the week got started. Well.....we ended up being invited to the party after church for our friend and by the time we got home, it seemed to be too late to start any sort of serious work....particularly since my husband took it into his head that instead of me doing any cleaning it would be far more interesting to watch a couple of boxing matches with him that we had recorded the previous evening. Who am I to say "no" to spending time with my husband, right?
That meant I was all geared up to go on Monday morning, while my husband had the car to go to a breakfast meeting, leaving me stuck at home with nothing more important to do than start cleaning! Well.....I slept in, slept WAY in, then as soon as I woke up I realized there were two grocery items we absolutely had to have immediately. So, I snail paced it over to the nearest grocery store to get them after extensive morning physio. I was barely home when my husband returned from his meeting, all ready to watch a movie we have been hoping for several years would be released to some kind of movie channel and, as it just happened, WAS on a channel we only recently began receiving as part of our tv package....it was starting ten minutes after he arrived home and was part of the reason he left his meeting early to return. He didn't want to miss seeing it as soon as possible. It had been years since I had seen it, so of course I wanted to see it again: "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". I mean, who wouldn't want to see that movie again given the opportunity, right? Between watching the over two hour movie and also pausing it ever whipstitch to make lunch, have a drink, check for an important and long awaited email, and on and on, over three hours passed in the blink of an eye! It was worth it because my husband has marked it now as one of his all time favourite movies, but who wants to start cleaning house at 3:30pm when dinner has to be made and ready shortly after 5pm? Another day of cleaning lost........
So, that geared me up for this morning. My husband had an early morning meeting and all I had to do while he was gone was get showered up, eat my breakfast, do my physio, get to two banks and be home as close to 10am as possible to get going on the cleaning project. My husband arrived just as I was finally getting myself out the door to get to the banks and he confirmed that it would suit him just fine if I was running the vacuum today. Good! I arrived home to the news that Kat had called and needed me to return her call as soon as possible. That, I did! She happened to be feeling quite well today and wanted to pick me up to go for a short walk over at the lake. I wasn't about to tell her "NO!". This may be one of the rare days that she is alone, bored and feeling well enough to go out and drive. So....of course I said I would be ready in ten minutes. She picked me up and away we went to have a short walk at the lake. Considering how exhausted she is from all her illnesses and drugs and treatments, it was quite amazing to me that we made it about a quarter of the way along the lake, racing the snails and losing, the pair of us! hahaha We had to sit down twice on some nice clean benches so Kat could rest, but she did it. She had a walk today! Then we drove to Good Earth for lunch. We both enjoyed our visit very much and the lunch was delicious. Kat managed to stay awake long enough to drive me home and herself as well, but hopefully she was able to have a long nap for the afternoon. I started getting out the cleaning equipment right away as it was all ready into the afternoon hours, but realized something was not sitting right in my digestive system, so I rested on the couch for awhile, then did my afternoon physio. Eventually I was able to rid my system of the offending food item, but it was after 4pm at that point and the struggle with the food sensitivity drained my mind as badly as my body! So, another short nap led up to making a light dinner. Fortunately I felt fine after that, but my husband forbade me to start cleaning after dinner because he could see how tired I was.
That brings me to tomorrow morning. Once again my husband has a fairly early morning meeting and I think he will be able to leave the car with me so I can go back to the bank to finish up what was started today. If the pensions are in I can go and pay July's rent and get that over with, leaving us free on the weekend from having to remember to pay it when there are always more fun things than that to think about on a weekend!! My fear now is that something will prevent me from getting to the bank the second it opens and that I will have some kind of long wait once I am there. My husband casually mentioned somewhere he thinks we need to go together tomorrow afternoon.....aaaaaaargh!!!!
Thursday is "back to Moose Jaw for more car repairs" day and that will take all day. That leaves me with Friday to get started on the housework and Saturday morning to finish up as we have another funeral to attend that afternoon. At that point it will be one full week since I decided to clean our suite properly. Aiiiii yiiiii....PLEASE GOD don't let anythning else come up on Friday, or Saturday morning!
I love everything I got to do so far this week and all the people I got to visit with and enjoy, but at some point being practical about the daily home chores has got to take precedence, doesn't it?
Guess I will find out in time..........hahahahahahaha.
Monday, June 24, 2019
Nothing Like A Good Walk To Set Things To Right!!
I was concerned when I went to bed last night that I would awaken with a rebellious hip after my long walk yesterday. Nope! Not at all!! It was exactly as stiff and sore as it has been every morning for the past couple of weeks, not one whit worse than usual. YAY! So, I started my daily physio routine again this morning, tossed a load of laundry into the washer, got myself dressed and am ready now to start cleaning this suite again. I will only do a couple of rooms each morning for the next 3 mornings while my husband is attending 3 of his 5 men's meetings scheduled for this week. Since he needs to car for all but one of them, I might as well use my time alone at home wisely. Knowing I can stretch and bend this leg now without damaging anything is so freeing! All the pain has been muscle pain and now the physio and what will now be daily walks will ease that considerably. So....off to the task at hand!
Have a most wonderful, blessed day everyone and thanks for your many expressions of caring concern and prayers.
Oh...speaking of which: yesterday Kat and her roomie got a phone call to say that their favourite auntie in eastern Canada had passed away. They are devastated as they knew she was ill and were plotting and planning ways they could transport themselves out there to say goodbye to her. More bad news for those two....unbelievable!!! The strength they are managing to maintain in the face of all they are dealing with is an incredible testimony to their faith in the Lord.
Have a most wonderful, blessed day everyone and thanks for your many expressions of caring concern and prayers.
Oh...speaking of which: yesterday Kat and her roomie got a phone call to say that their favourite auntie in eastern Canada had passed away. They are devastated as they knew she was ill and were plotting and planning ways they could transport themselves out there to say goodbye to her. More bad news for those two....unbelievable!!! The strength they are managing to maintain in the face of all they are dealing with is an incredible testimony to their faith in the Lord.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
But If You Try Sometime, You Just Might Find......
....you actually DO get what you want after all! PTL!!
My pity party today lasted all of 7 minutes! That is about how long it was between when my husband drove out of the parking lot to go and preside over his church service and when the rain stopped completely! (Just as I was just getting warmed up to feel uber sorry for myself today!)
As I watched the water drying up rather rapidly from the pavement, I took a notion into my head that perhaps if I did my morning physio to stretch out my muscles, then scurried around and got dressed, maybe, JUST MAYBE, I could try the slow walk to church. No time like the present to try that out, right? If I couldn't make it and had to turn around after a few blocks and return home, no harm done, right? Of course right!
So, one hour before church was to start, off I wandered, cane in grip! Guess what? I made it there in 45 minutes. So, I walked about approximately half of my typical walking pace. A snail leaving my house at the same time would have arrived at church ahead of me, but I listened to my doctor's advice and walked super duper party pooper slowly!!! It worked! My anxious little forays this past week to the grocery store 3 blocks away certainly gave my hip the idea that it could take some kind of walk farther than up and down the stairs to my basement, so since I have been doing that, plus regular physio with no cheating, it all paid off this morning. YIPPEE!!!
I was afraid that sitting then for over an hour on a hard pew would wreak havoc after the 2km walk, but I picked up a pew cushion on my way into the sanctuary, just like all the other elderly, cane waving grannies, and when church was over I had no problems standing up and getting moving again.
I was only a few blocks from the church on the way home when my husband came driving up after his service. He picked me up and we joined some other folk for lunch at DarBar! It was a party for a fellow who emigrated here from northern India a year ago and has stuggled to find work in his field. Last week he was hired full time for an excellent job! We had a wonderful celebration! Fortunately he enjoyed the Indian food very much. He said his curry was spiced exactly as he had asked for it to be and he will be happy to eat there again any time!
We arrived home to only a minimal (relatively speaking) amount of needed goose poop scooping. I put the run on the 4 family units this morning that have been waddling en masse and pooping all across our back lawn twice a day for the past two weeks. That is a total of 58 birds in this case, teensy tinsy ones, teens, parents and hangers on. See why I have been scooping up between 2 and 5 pounds of poop every day just from the 20 foot long, 3 foot wide section of grass between our backstep and the car?
Now we are thinking about how we can manage to force ourselves to eat a bit of dinner later tonight so that we don't wake up hungry at 3am tomorrow. We are way too full from eating so much at DarBar. Normally we each eat about half and bring the rest home for another time, but today we ate like little piggies. Guess all the laughter and chatter and fun had us so torqued up we weren't paying attention to our intake. I confess I came home and, after poop scooping for awhile, drank a stiff gin and diet tonic to help my blood sugar come down....TOO MANY CARBS at lunch time. No one's fault but my own!
I suspect we will feel like a pair of overly sated blobs for the rest of the day, so I am going to go and have a hot shower, wash my hair and relax with some reading or tv and perhaps just a few physio exercises before bed so I don't tighten up to much in that hip.
From pity party to celebration party....what a nice day! There is sunshine now too and a light breeze. O how I enjoyed the walk this morning and now, sitting here in the sun beside the open window, am enjoying the warm, fresh air.
My pity party today lasted all of 7 minutes! That is about how long it was between when my husband drove out of the parking lot to go and preside over his church service and when the rain stopped completely! (Just as I was just getting warmed up to feel uber sorry for myself today!)
As I watched the water drying up rather rapidly from the pavement, I took a notion into my head that perhaps if I did my morning physio to stretch out my muscles, then scurried around and got dressed, maybe, JUST MAYBE, I could try the slow walk to church. No time like the present to try that out, right? If I couldn't make it and had to turn around after a few blocks and return home, no harm done, right? Of course right!
So, one hour before church was to start, off I wandered, cane in grip! Guess what? I made it there in 45 minutes. So, I walked about approximately half of my typical walking pace. A snail leaving my house at the same time would have arrived at church ahead of me, but I listened to my doctor's advice and walked super duper party pooper slowly!!! It worked! My anxious little forays this past week to the grocery store 3 blocks away certainly gave my hip the idea that it could take some kind of walk farther than up and down the stairs to my basement, so since I have been doing that, plus regular physio with no cheating, it all paid off this morning. YIPPEE!!!
I was afraid that sitting then for over an hour on a hard pew would wreak havoc after the 2km walk, but I picked up a pew cushion on my way into the sanctuary, just like all the other elderly, cane waving grannies, and when church was over I had no problems standing up and getting moving again.
I was only a few blocks from the church on the way home when my husband came driving up after his service. He picked me up and we joined some other folk for lunch at DarBar! It was a party for a fellow who emigrated here from northern India a year ago and has stuggled to find work in his field. Last week he was hired full time for an excellent job! We had a wonderful celebration! Fortunately he enjoyed the Indian food very much. He said his curry was spiced exactly as he had asked for it to be and he will be happy to eat there again any time!
We arrived home to only a minimal (relatively speaking) amount of needed goose poop scooping. I put the run on the 4 family units this morning that have been waddling en masse and pooping all across our back lawn twice a day for the past two weeks. That is a total of 58 birds in this case, teensy tinsy ones, teens, parents and hangers on. See why I have been scooping up between 2 and 5 pounds of poop every day just from the 20 foot long, 3 foot wide section of grass between our backstep and the car?
Now we are thinking about how we can manage to force ourselves to eat a bit of dinner later tonight so that we don't wake up hungry at 3am tomorrow. We are way too full from eating so much at DarBar. Normally we each eat about half and bring the rest home for another time, but today we ate like little piggies. Guess all the laughter and chatter and fun had us so torqued up we weren't paying attention to our intake. I confess I came home and, after poop scooping for awhile, drank a stiff gin and diet tonic to help my blood sugar come down....TOO MANY CARBS at lunch time. No one's fault but my own!
I suspect we will feel like a pair of overly sated blobs for the rest of the day, so I am going to go and have a hot shower, wash my hair and relax with some reading or tv and perhaps just a few physio exercises before bed so I don't tighten up to much in that hip.
From pity party to celebration party....what a nice day! There is sunshine now too and a light breeze. O how I enjoyed the walk this morning and now, sitting here in the sun beside the open window, am enjoying the warm, fresh air.
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Guess I will be missing church this morning. Waaaaaaah!
My husband is taking a service way across the city this morning. He has to leave quite early to navigate the road construction along the route. So, he cannot drive me to my church.
It is raining again so walking is out of the question as I would be soaked after walking that far, plus I am 100% certain my hip isn’t guaranteed ready to cover that distance yet, probably not for for another couple of weeks.
The one couple that drives by here on Sunday mornings who could pick me up are away this weekend,
I am not spending the money to take a cab now that I have checked out the cost.
My bus will be running, but due to the closure of the street in front of the church for several weeks worth of road and sidewalk repairs, no matter where I get off the bus I have to walk half the distance I would if I was walking from home to get to the one accessible door into the church, through a very crime riddled neighbourhood where I have been approached previously on two occasions by less than stellar characters wanting money. Six blocks or more walking in the rain negates the purpose of taking the bus to stay dry.
So, if I really needed to go to church this morning, I could get there of course. Where there’s a will in this case there is a way, but I suspect that this morning I will just stay at home and feel sorry for myself! Over the years I have found it to be quite all right to have the occasional pity party day. There are a number of upsetting issues going on around here these days that I am tired of dealing with, my hip hurts today, I feel worn out.
Yup, I think I will make today a pity party day and sit around this morning feeling sorry for myself and whining about the difficulty in getting to church today. It may be a good day to sit at home going “Waaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! Woe is me! Waaaaaaah!”
(It is kind of an alluring idea, but I’ll see how long I can sustain it before I get fed up and start cleaning house or doing laundry because I’m bored by feeling sorry for myself, haha)
My husband is taking a service way across the city this morning. He has to leave quite early to navigate the road construction along the route. So, he cannot drive me to my church.
It is raining again so walking is out of the question as I would be soaked after walking that far, plus I am 100% certain my hip isn’t guaranteed ready to cover that distance yet, probably not for for another couple of weeks.
The one couple that drives by here on Sunday mornings who could pick me up are away this weekend,
I am not spending the money to take a cab now that I have checked out the cost.
My bus will be running, but due to the closure of the street in front of the church for several weeks worth of road and sidewalk repairs, no matter where I get off the bus I have to walk half the distance I would if I was walking from home to get to the one accessible door into the church, through a very crime riddled neighbourhood where I have been approached previously on two occasions by less than stellar characters wanting money. Six blocks or more walking in the rain negates the purpose of taking the bus to stay dry.
So, if I really needed to go to church this morning, I could get there of course. Where there’s a will in this case there is a way, but I suspect that this morning I will just stay at home and feel sorry for myself! Over the years I have found it to be quite all right to have the occasional pity party day. There are a number of upsetting issues going on around here these days that I am tired of dealing with, my hip hurts today, I feel worn out.
Yup, I think I will make today a pity party day and sit around this morning feeling sorry for myself and whining about the difficulty in getting to church today. It may be a good day to sit at home going “Waaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaah! Woe is me! Waaaaaaah!”
(It is kind of an alluring idea, but I’ll see how long I can sustain it before I get fed up and start cleaning house or doing laundry because I’m bored by feeling sorry for myself, haha)
Saturday, June 22, 2019
It Probably Won't Help, BUT......
....I composed and sent off an email to the Regina City Fish and Wildlife inquiry office, asking what can be done about all the Canada geese that have invaded our complex. I doubt it will accomplish much, but when we came home from a funeral this afternoon to find over 60 geese of various sizes and ages on the lawn outside our back door and I shovelled nearly 5 pounds of fresh poop out of the yard....well, I decided it is time to speak up. I am going to start contacting every fish and wildlife office in the area, every health board in the city and provincially.
What lame brain in years past decided it was a good idea to harbour a bird sanctuary on Wascana Lake, right in the centre of the city, and allow hundreds of Canada geese every year to poop all over the walking paths and lawns around the lake and surrounding residential properties, exposing all the humans and their pets to the incredible number of bacteria and parasites harbouring in the goose feces???? Giardia parasites, ecoli, salmonella, histoplasmosis, campylobacter and coccidia are among the most common problems associated with goose feces and every time the kids in this complex try to play outside they end up covered in the stuff. It is GROSS and incredibly dangerous health-wise. My husband and I have stopped trying to take the paths to walk around the lake. There is too much goose poop! At this point we can't walk 15 feet from our back door to our car without having to shovel poop out of the way first...EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK!!!!
The property management company that rents to us has been put into a position by the City of Regina whereby they could be sued for renting suites that are a healty risk, unfit for human habitation! They are paralyzed to do much about the problem for their tenants because Regina has given these birds more protection than anyone or anything else.
If the city cannot clean up its bird mess and continue to risk a disease epidemic, why should my neighbours be fined if they don't pick up their dog's one piece of poop from the sidewalk?? It is absolutely ludicrous that a city whose powers that be can decide certain neighbourhoods are not going to allow their residents to put up clothes lines because it looks messy, cannot decide to deal with the over abundance of even messier geese and their poo poo pee doo!!!!
I don't appreciate being forced for health reasons to have to consider an inconvenient move to another part of the city next spring, a move I don't want to make and shouldn't have to be forced into because of the bird sanctuary and its contamination of lake and lawns.
As I say, I doubt I will get anywhere with registering my complaints, even with those who have the power to do something about them, but dang it, I am finally going to try!
What lame brain in years past decided it was a good idea to harbour a bird sanctuary on Wascana Lake, right in the centre of the city, and allow hundreds of Canada geese every year to poop all over the walking paths and lawns around the lake and surrounding residential properties, exposing all the humans and their pets to the incredible number of bacteria and parasites harbouring in the goose feces???? Giardia parasites, ecoli, salmonella, histoplasmosis, campylobacter and coccidia are among the most common problems associated with goose feces and every time the kids in this complex try to play outside they end up covered in the stuff. It is GROSS and incredibly dangerous health-wise. My husband and I have stopped trying to take the paths to walk around the lake. There is too much goose poop! At this point we can't walk 15 feet from our back door to our car without having to shovel poop out of the way first...EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK!!!!
The property management company that rents to us has been put into a position by the City of Regina whereby they could be sued for renting suites that are a healty risk, unfit for human habitation! They are paralyzed to do much about the problem for their tenants because Regina has given these birds more protection than anyone or anything else.
If the city cannot clean up its bird mess and continue to risk a disease epidemic, why should my neighbours be fined if they don't pick up their dog's one piece of poop from the sidewalk?? It is absolutely ludicrous that a city whose powers that be can decide certain neighbourhoods are not going to allow their residents to put up clothes lines because it looks messy, cannot decide to deal with the over abundance of even messier geese and their poo poo pee doo!!!!
I don't appreciate being forced for health reasons to have to consider an inconvenient move to another part of the city next spring, a move I don't want to make and shouldn't have to be forced into because of the bird sanctuary and its contamination of lake and lawns.
As I say, I doubt I will get anywhere with registering my complaints, even with those who have the power to do something about them, but dang it, I am finally going to try!
Thursday, June 20, 2019
Duck, Duck Goose....Bunny, Gopher, Starling, Hare, Raven......
The menagerie outside our place is enjoying this past two days of rain as much as all of us humans are! They are waddling through and leaping into the large puddles in the parking lot, munching on the suddenly green patches of grass and racing playfully about the lawns with a new energy after being somewhat lethargic on the long, hot, dry days of recent weeks. It is grand to see.
We drove to Moose Jaw this morning in a driving rain storm, but so enjoyed seeing all that water falling from the skies onto our badly parched earth. Everyone is grateful that there will be more rain over the next couple of days here. We are not getting the flooding that Swift Current had, so we are grateful for that and hope they can get their town free of high water in the streets very soon.
My husband used great creativity in catching the water in our basement so that the whole floor didn't end up covered with it. He attached shoelaces along the interior basement wall to catch and direct the water seeping in through the cracks that didn't get patched last fall. They directed the water into a rolled plastic trough that funneled the water into a large aluminum foil throw away turkey roaster. It worked fantastically well. When we arrived home from Moose Jaw the pan was filled with several gallons of water and not one drop landed on the bare floor or on the towels we had laying around in case the pan couldn't hold all of today's "offering". The rain let up late this afternoon and as soon as the wall dried, he was able to apply some of the crystallizing agent patching product to those cracks. Early tomorrow morning the rain will begin once again, causing that crystallizing agent to expand. Hopefully it will work as well there as it has everywhere else in the basement he has used it. So far I have only had to put one towel into the dryer since the rain started; the one that soaked up the initial leaking from the area he patched tonight. I am so proud of his creativity and problem solving skills that he learned from his subsistance farming background. His parents were the most skilled problem solvers I have ever met: don't have the tool or system you need to do the job? Well then, look at what you do have and improvise your own alternative tool or system or whatever is needed to complete the task at hand. It is an amazing skill set that I lack completely!!
We had a wonderful time in Moose Jaw while we awaited the completion of the car repairs: dear friends picked us up and took us to their favourite breakfast spot. We ate like little pigs. The bill for the 4 of us was a total of $25.43! Turns out that the Esso on highway 1 heading east of Moose Jaw has a $5 a plate breakfast special between 6:30am and 8:30am. We got there just in time to take advantage of it. That cost covered three plates with 2 eggs any style, 2 slices of toast, a swack of cubed hash browns that were barely salted, YAY, one plate with a ham and cheese omelet that was made from FOUR eggs, a huge pot of tea and a coffee. Since it was my turn to pay, I really lucked out, eh? WOW! Even better than the meal was the visit with our friends, my former favourite MJ transit driver and his wife. We haven't had a chance to see them for a couple of years now, so it was great getting caught up on each other's lives.
They dropped us off after breakfast at the downtown Moose Jaw Library, one of our favourite spots. We sat in there in some extremely comfortable chairs and read books we brought from home. It was quiet and glorious! We had been told that because of the number of repairs needing to be done on the car that it would likely be very late in the afternoon before it was finished, so I had my cane with me in order to walk a bit in the rain after our library time.
Just after we left the library, at 12:15pm, we got a call that the car was ready. The mechanic found out we had come from Regina, saw me with my cane and decided he would work through his lunch hour so we could get back on the road sooner! This is exactly the kind of service we have come to expect from this place and we were thrilled. We are also happy the fellow had the sense to realize that one of the parts needed to repair part of the exhaust system should actually be one specifically from Honda, so he couldn't do it today. We talked about it and decided to order the part and return next week to have the final repair done. It seems silly I suppose to continue driving to Moose Jaw for tires and car repairs, but we have had good service there for years and it gives us a chance to go there and connect with old friends. We truly enjoy it!
By the time we walked back to the shop and got the car, we realized it was going to be too late for me to eat my lunch back at home without making my blood sugar most unhappy. So, not needing a second heavy meal in one day, we opted to try out Mitsu Sweets and Sushi on Main Street. We admit we had very low expectations of what the food would be like, having struggled to enjoy sushi made on the Canadian prairies where even the ingredients that are available here are simply not that fresh. It can't be helped. There is no ocean anywhere near Saskatchewan, so sushi makers can only do so much to make it taste authentic. We were pleasantly surprised! The sushi was quite good, if a little stingy with the tamago on the eniri sushi. The other raw fish was as fresh as it gets here and my husband found it quite tasty. I ordered an obento box with nice small portions of chicken teriyaki, edamame, salad with a too mild ginger dressing, two gyoza and four mini sushi rolls. If it wasn't fantastic, it was good enough and certainly better than any other sushi restaurants that have popped up in times past in Moose Jaw. I enjoyed having the treat of a Tokyo fog to drink and my husband enjoyed some relatively high grade sencha, rather than having to settle for the cheap toasted rice of genmaicha. All in all, a much more pleasant experience than we thought it would be. The restaurant is owned and operated by a Japanese family apparently, so they are at least trying to make the sushi as authentic as they can. A little more rice vinegar in the sushi rice would have been nice, but it was certainly better by far then the usual Chinese restaurant attempts at sushi with rice so dry as to be nearly inedible. There was a nice portion of wasabi with the sushi with extra on the side and it had actual heat to it; very nice.
The rain was coming to an end by the time we left Moose Jaw, so it was a pleasant drive back home. We relaxed and watched a bit of tv, then spent the evening working on some writing projects and doing emails. My husband went to bed extremely early as he is learning how healing the extra long sleeps are for him. Tomorrow morning he has a SKYPE chat with a theology buddy and tomorrow evening we are going to a birthday party. That will be fun. I thought I was going to be cleaning house tomorrow and Saturday, but now on Saturday we have to attend an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship BBQ at noon to spend time with a local missionary we support, followed immediately by a funeral for a dear friend's father. Those mid day committments will leave me with insufficient energy afterward to tackle whatever work remains after Friday's cleaning. Well, it will work out. I so want to take advantage of this rainy time that is keeping the dust down, so that the suite will stay clean longer!
I am happy that today turned out so well. I was able to get a bit of walking in without it being too much AND I was able to do all three of my physio sessions to mitigate the tremendous amount of time I had to sit to travel, plus the two hours in the library. Hopefully my muscles will remain happy due to the physio and I will be able to sleep tonight. Last night they were unhappy for some reason, so wow...not a lot of sleep due to the discomfort. Speaking of sleeping it is time to go and give that very thing a try!
Nighty night!
We drove to Moose Jaw this morning in a driving rain storm, but so enjoyed seeing all that water falling from the skies onto our badly parched earth. Everyone is grateful that there will be more rain over the next couple of days here. We are not getting the flooding that Swift Current had, so we are grateful for that and hope they can get their town free of high water in the streets very soon.
My husband used great creativity in catching the water in our basement so that the whole floor didn't end up covered with it. He attached shoelaces along the interior basement wall to catch and direct the water seeping in through the cracks that didn't get patched last fall. They directed the water into a rolled plastic trough that funneled the water into a large aluminum foil throw away turkey roaster. It worked fantastically well. When we arrived home from Moose Jaw the pan was filled with several gallons of water and not one drop landed on the bare floor or on the towels we had laying around in case the pan couldn't hold all of today's "offering". The rain let up late this afternoon and as soon as the wall dried, he was able to apply some of the crystallizing agent patching product to those cracks. Early tomorrow morning the rain will begin once again, causing that crystallizing agent to expand. Hopefully it will work as well there as it has everywhere else in the basement he has used it. So far I have only had to put one towel into the dryer since the rain started; the one that soaked up the initial leaking from the area he patched tonight. I am so proud of his creativity and problem solving skills that he learned from his subsistance farming background. His parents were the most skilled problem solvers I have ever met: don't have the tool or system you need to do the job? Well then, look at what you do have and improvise your own alternative tool or system or whatever is needed to complete the task at hand. It is an amazing skill set that I lack completely!!
We had a wonderful time in Moose Jaw while we awaited the completion of the car repairs: dear friends picked us up and took us to their favourite breakfast spot. We ate like little pigs. The bill for the 4 of us was a total of $25.43! Turns out that the Esso on highway 1 heading east of Moose Jaw has a $5 a plate breakfast special between 6:30am and 8:30am. We got there just in time to take advantage of it. That cost covered three plates with 2 eggs any style, 2 slices of toast, a swack of cubed hash browns that were barely salted, YAY, one plate with a ham and cheese omelet that was made from FOUR eggs, a huge pot of tea and a coffee. Since it was my turn to pay, I really lucked out, eh? WOW! Even better than the meal was the visit with our friends, my former favourite MJ transit driver and his wife. We haven't had a chance to see them for a couple of years now, so it was great getting caught up on each other's lives.
They dropped us off after breakfast at the downtown Moose Jaw Library, one of our favourite spots. We sat in there in some extremely comfortable chairs and read books we brought from home. It was quiet and glorious! We had been told that because of the number of repairs needing to be done on the car that it would likely be very late in the afternoon before it was finished, so I had my cane with me in order to walk a bit in the rain after our library time.
Just after we left the library, at 12:15pm, we got a call that the car was ready. The mechanic found out we had come from Regina, saw me with my cane and decided he would work through his lunch hour so we could get back on the road sooner! This is exactly the kind of service we have come to expect from this place and we were thrilled. We are also happy the fellow had the sense to realize that one of the parts needed to repair part of the exhaust system should actually be one specifically from Honda, so he couldn't do it today. We talked about it and decided to order the part and return next week to have the final repair done. It seems silly I suppose to continue driving to Moose Jaw for tires and car repairs, but we have had good service there for years and it gives us a chance to go there and connect with old friends. We truly enjoy it!
By the time we walked back to the shop and got the car, we realized it was going to be too late for me to eat my lunch back at home without making my blood sugar most unhappy. So, not needing a second heavy meal in one day, we opted to try out Mitsu Sweets and Sushi on Main Street. We admit we had very low expectations of what the food would be like, having struggled to enjoy sushi made on the Canadian prairies where even the ingredients that are available here are simply not that fresh. It can't be helped. There is no ocean anywhere near Saskatchewan, so sushi makers can only do so much to make it taste authentic. We were pleasantly surprised! The sushi was quite good, if a little stingy with the tamago on the eniri sushi. The other raw fish was as fresh as it gets here and my husband found it quite tasty. I ordered an obento box with nice small portions of chicken teriyaki, edamame, salad with a too mild ginger dressing, two gyoza and four mini sushi rolls. If it wasn't fantastic, it was good enough and certainly better than any other sushi restaurants that have popped up in times past in Moose Jaw. I enjoyed having the treat of a Tokyo fog to drink and my husband enjoyed some relatively high grade sencha, rather than having to settle for the cheap toasted rice of genmaicha. All in all, a much more pleasant experience than we thought it would be. The restaurant is owned and operated by a Japanese family apparently, so they are at least trying to make the sushi as authentic as they can. A little more rice vinegar in the sushi rice would have been nice, but it was certainly better by far then the usual Chinese restaurant attempts at sushi with rice so dry as to be nearly inedible. There was a nice portion of wasabi with the sushi with extra on the side and it had actual heat to it; very nice.
The rain was coming to an end by the time we left Moose Jaw, so it was a pleasant drive back home. We relaxed and watched a bit of tv, then spent the evening working on some writing projects and doing emails. My husband went to bed extremely early as he is learning how healing the extra long sleeps are for him. Tomorrow morning he has a SKYPE chat with a theology buddy and tomorrow evening we are going to a birthday party. That will be fun. I thought I was going to be cleaning house tomorrow and Saturday, but now on Saturday we have to attend an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship BBQ at noon to spend time with a local missionary we support, followed immediately by a funeral for a dear friend's father. Those mid day committments will leave me with insufficient energy afterward to tackle whatever work remains after Friday's cleaning. Well, it will work out. I so want to take advantage of this rainy time that is keeping the dust down, so that the suite will stay clean longer!
I am happy that today turned out so well. I was able to get a bit of walking in without it being too much AND I was able to do all three of my physio sessions to mitigate the tremendous amount of time I had to sit to travel, plus the two hours in the library. Hopefully my muscles will remain happy due to the physio and I will be able to sleep tonight. Last night they were unhappy for some reason, so wow...not a lot of sleep due to the discomfort. Speaking of sleeping it is time to go and give that very thing a try!
Nighty night!
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
The Rain Cometh, The Basement Leaketh!
Well, I never did like change all that much, so....here’s to another summer of damp mops and soggy towels and cement wall patching!
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
Such A Relaxing Day
Waking up at 6:30am is my new normal, whether or not there is any traffic or goose noise happening outside my window. Today it gave me plenty of time to be ready to pick up my friend for our breakfast out together. She treated me in honour of my recent birthday, so that was an unexpected extra. Wow, I am feeling quite spoiled after over ten days of celebration! She and I talk about everything from health to politics to childrearing and grandparenting, to the weather, to church life....on and on it goes and it was just what I needed today. Thank you friend and thank you Lord!
I spent the rest of the day catching up on errands, ironing, keeping up with my thrice daily physiotherapy sessions and in the later afternoon I went over to my husband's former office to use the laminator. He has a giant map of Otter Lake and area, up in the Churchill River System and it is starting to tear from age and over use. It was quite a process laminating a map that is three times larger than the size of document the small laminator will actually hold at one time, but with some fussing and fixing and creative thinking, we got it done.
After my large and late breakfast, I had very little for lunch and should have been much hungrier than I was once dinner arrived, so I had a taco salad. I am enjoying baked taco chips instead of the fried ones, plus I don't need more than about 6 to 8 of them to be sufficient for the salad. So this evening I feel "light and fluffy" compared to how I would have felt with a "meat and potatoes" type of fare.
My husband enjoyed his lections discussion group again this morning. It is so nice to see him enjoying his life so much now that he has had a few months to debrief and recover from his last position at work. I surely am going to miss him in the autumn when he returns to work.
Well, my, my, my, but the rain predicted for the next 4 days is still in the forecast this evening. Perhaps it will actually happen this time. For me personally it couldn't be more inconvenient timing as I look at what I have to do over the next couple of days, but we are so desperately in need of the moisture that I will not be complaining! I am quite grateful that although we will now likely be taking our car out of town for repairs later this week during a huge thunderstorm, our friends we are meeting for breakfast are picking us up at the repair shop as soon as we drop off the car and driving us to the restaurant! Thank you friends and thank you Lord! Sounds like the entire southern prairies is going to get a decent dose of rain at last.
Those blasted physio exercises seem to be working! I am part way into week 2 and today I certainly saw a noticeable difference for the better. Speaking of which....it is time for my third session of the day. I am delighted and praying that I am not imagining things, but my pain level all day tells me I am truly seeing some improvement! Here's hoping.....
I spent the rest of the day catching up on errands, ironing, keeping up with my thrice daily physiotherapy sessions and in the later afternoon I went over to my husband's former office to use the laminator. He has a giant map of Otter Lake and area, up in the Churchill River System and it is starting to tear from age and over use. It was quite a process laminating a map that is three times larger than the size of document the small laminator will actually hold at one time, but with some fussing and fixing and creative thinking, we got it done.
After my large and late breakfast, I had very little for lunch and should have been much hungrier than I was once dinner arrived, so I had a taco salad. I am enjoying baked taco chips instead of the fried ones, plus I don't need more than about 6 to 8 of them to be sufficient for the salad. So this evening I feel "light and fluffy" compared to how I would have felt with a "meat and potatoes" type of fare.
My husband enjoyed his lections discussion group again this morning. It is so nice to see him enjoying his life so much now that he has had a few months to debrief and recover from his last position at work. I surely am going to miss him in the autumn when he returns to work.
Well, my, my, my, but the rain predicted for the next 4 days is still in the forecast this evening. Perhaps it will actually happen this time. For me personally it couldn't be more inconvenient timing as I look at what I have to do over the next couple of days, but we are so desperately in need of the moisture that I will not be complaining! I am quite grateful that although we will now likely be taking our car out of town for repairs later this week during a huge thunderstorm, our friends we are meeting for breakfast are picking us up at the repair shop as soon as we drop off the car and driving us to the restaurant! Thank you friends and thank you Lord! Sounds like the entire southern prairies is going to get a decent dose of rain at last.
Those blasted physio exercises seem to be working! I am part way into week 2 and today I certainly saw a noticeable difference for the better. Speaking of which....it is time for my third session of the day. I am delighted and praying that I am not imagining things, but my pain level all day tells me I am truly seeing some improvement! Here's hoping.....
Monday, June 17, 2019
Some Things Are Working Out Well At the End Of The Day
My husband decided my birthday cake extravaganza was definitely going to happen for me today! What a sweetie! Off we went this afternoon to run a couple of errands and then have my birthday cake at Le Macaron!
The stock was somewhat depleted by the time we got there, but I had a delicious slice of black forest cake...the cherries were not soaked in kirsch, but it was still wonderful and light as a feather. My husband had a rolled "cannelloni" filled with chocolate mousse and tiny chocolate chips. We enjoyed them with a vanilla steamer. What a lovely treat to be there during one of the less crowded hours of the day and listen to lovely light jazz over the sound system. There was no booming rock and roll, just comfortable jazz fusion that kept us glued to our seats, visiting in comfort long after the food and drink had been consumed. I felt like I was being rewarded or something because it was so VERY relaxing! Thank you wonderful husband for remembering I never got my birthday cake on "the day".
I came home to a fun phone call with an hilarious friend of mine and then I got an email from Kat to say she has been admitted to hospital, is in isolation, has had all manner of tests, seen several doctors and nurses and will soon see her oncologist. I am so relieved that finally she is being reassessed! Hallelujah! She was in a ton of pain when she sent her brief message so I am praying for relief for her. Val's hip injection continues to work quite well, so she will be able to provide whatever assistance Kat needs over the next few days.
The day is definitely improving for us all around here!
The stock was somewhat depleted by the time we got there, but I had a delicious slice of black forest cake...the cherries were not soaked in kirsch, but it was still wonderful and light as a feather. My husband had a rolled "cannelloni" filled with chocolate mousse and tiny chocolate chips. We enjoyed them with a vanilla steamer. What a lovely treat to be there during one of the less crowded hours of the day and listen to lovely light jazz over the sound system. There was no booming rock and roll, just comfortable jazz fusion that kept us glued to our seats, visiting in comfort long after the food and drink had been consumed. I felt like I was being rewarded or something because it was so VERY relaxing! Thank you wonderful husband for remembering I never got my birthday cake on "the day".
I came home to a fun phone call with an hilarious friend of mine and then I got an email from Kat to say she has been admitted to hospital, is in isolation, has had all manner of tests, seen several doctors and nurses and will soon see her oncologist. I am so relieved that finally she is being reassessed! Hallelujah! She was in a ton of pain when she sent her brief message so I am praying for relief for her. Val's hip injection continues to work quite well, so she will be able to provide whatever assistance Kat needs over the next few days.
The day is definitely improving for us all around here!
How Do You Spell L-U-D-I-C-R-O-U-S???????????
That is the best word to describe today thus far, and it is only just after lunch time!!! CRAZY!!!
I got Kat to the cancer clinic just as it opened this morning, and of course, (short version), no help was available because she had no appointment. She had to call the clinic on her phone, from a chair in the waiting room and we watched as the receptionist answered her call from ten feet away. Sigh.....
We realized that while the receptionist had forwarded the message to the Kat's onsite oncologist's office, it could be several hours until the message was received and responded to, so, when no one was looking, Kat wandered casually into the chemotherapy department and went looking for her oncologist's office. The oncologist was in surgery, but Kat found the same chemo nurse she'd had taking care of her during her treatment last week. That compassionate individual wrote up a request for Kat to be contacted as soon as possible and displayed it prominently on the surgeon's desk.
Another friend was also present at the hospital, so Kat left her phone on "just in case the call comes in soon, by some miracle" and we all went to the cafeteria to visit for well over an hour. Kat figured it was better to be distracted by friends in the midst of her pain than to be suffering alone at home.
We just reached the car out in the parking lot to go home, when the oncologist called. Kat explained what was going on with her symptoms and the oncologist said she would call the pharmacist immediately and set up a better pain management med. YAY! I drove Kat home and we were rejoicing.
I came home and got on with my own life, thinking all was well. Half an hour ago Kat called me. Upon review, the oncologist decided Kat should return immediately to the clinic and check into Emergency for a full reassessment! Kat has another friend who lives closer to her than I do, arriving momentarily to take her back up there. CRAZY!!! However, I am so grateful for the compassionate chemo nurse and for the speed at which the oncologist involved herself despite her overly busy surgical schedule when I attempted to help Kat this morning. (Thanks to the advocacy of the head of the local ovarian cancer survivor support group there are more oncologists headed to Regina to practise and they will be arriving over the next few months. Hallelujah!)
Don't know when Kat will be able to contact me with an update, but I hope she can get some actual help this time.
Then the next ludicrous thing happened when the mailman delivered letters for myself and my husband from Services Canada! My husband's letter said he had been overpaid on his Guaranteed Income Supplement for 3 months.......in 2017! So, he would have to repay it immediately. Since the total is only just over $30, it is no problem. After reading his letter I was terrified to open mine! However, my letter stated that I had been underpaid for my GIS for the same 3 months of 2017 and that since I would now be collecting my full pension, the GIS my husband had been receiving would now, for some inexplicable reason, be transferred to me. In a couple of weeks, I will be sent the same amount to the penny for that same three month period he lost his GIS payment for. So, talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul. How much tax money was lost to this process of changing his GIS extra supplement over to be MY GIS supplement??? Paper, paid employee time, postage..... It boggles the mind. What is more mind boggling is that since the GIS is based on the total income of our family of two and nothing else has retroactively effected our total income from those three months in 2017, why has the GIS been transferred from my husband to me? Why wasn't it mine to start with then and not his? We are both totally confused, but we dutifully wrote out the repayment cheque and mailed it a few minutes later. We have both read our letters of explanation over several times and they make no more sense now than they did the first time we read them. CRAZY!
This afternoon we have errands to run. I am hoping this run of ludicrous events is over for the rest of today. My mind is tired from trying to figure out what is going on around me! hahahahahahahahahahaha
We are going to end our errand trip with a visit to Le Macaron for my very delayed birthday cake extravaganza! I am all ready trying to decide between the lemon matcha cake and the lavender cake dome. I don't think they put enough lavender flavour into it, so right now the matcha cake is winning the battle for a decision! hahaha
I got Kat to the cancer clinic just as it opened this morning, and of course, (short version), no help was available because she had no appointment. She had to call the clinic on her phone, from a chair in the waiting room and we watched as the receptionist answered her call from ten feet away. Sigh.....
We realized that while the receptionist had forwarded the message to the Kat's onsite oncologist's office, it could be several hours until the message was received and responded to, so, when no one was looking, Kat wandered casually into the chemotherapy department and went looking for her oncologist's office. The oncologist was in surgery, but Kat found the same chemo nurse she'd had taking care of her during her treatment last week. That compassionate individual wrote up a request for Kat to be contacted as soon as possible and displayed it prominently on the surgeon's desk.
Another friend was also present at the hospital, so Kat left her phone on "just in case the call comes in soon, by some miracle" and we all went to the cafeteria to visit for well over an hour. Kat figured it was better to be distracted by friends in the midst of her pain than to be suffering alone at home.
We just reached the car out in the parking lot to go home, when the oncologist called. Kat explained what was going on with her symptoms and the oncologist said she would call the pharmacist immediately and set up a better pain management med. YAY! I drove Kat home and we were rejoicing.
I came home and got on with my own life, thinking all was well. Half an hour ago Kat called me. Upon review, the oncologist decided Kat should return immediately to the clinic and check into Emergency for a full reassessment! Kat has another friend who lives closer to her than I do, arriving momentarily to take her back up there. CRAZY!!! However, I am so grateful for the compassionate chemo nurse and for the speed at which the oncologist involved herself despite her overly busy surgical schedule when I attempted to help Kat this morning. (Thanks to the advocacy of the head of the local ovarian cancer survivor support group there are more oncologists headed to Regina to practise and they will be arriving over the next few months. Hallelujah!)
Don't know when Kat will be able to contact me with an update, but I hope she can get some actual help this time.
Then the next ludicrous thing happened when the mailman delivered letters for myself and my husband from Services Canada! My husband's letter said he had been overpaid on his Guaranteed Income Supplement for 3 months.......in 2017! So, he would have to repay it immediately. Since the total is only just over $30, it is no problem. After reading his letter I was terrified to open mine! However, my letter stated that I had been underpaid for my GIS for the same 3 months of 2017 and that since I would now be collecting my full pension, the GIS my husband had been receiving would now, for some inexplicable reason, be transferred to me. In a couple of weeks, I will be sent the same amount to the penny for that same three month period he lost his GIS payment for. So, talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul. How much tax money was lost to this process of changing his GIS extra supplement over to be MY GIS supplement??? Paper, paid employee time, postage..... It boggles the mind. What is more mind boggling is that since the GIS is based on the total income of our family of two and nothing else has retroactively effected our total income from those three months in 2017, why has the GIS been transferred from my husband to me? Why wasn't it mine to start with then and not his? We are both totally confused, but we dutifully wrote out the repayment cheque and mailed it a few minutes later. We have both read our letters of explanation over several times and they make no more sense now than they did the first time we read them. CRAZY!
This afternoon we have errands to run. I am hoping this run of ludicrous events is over for the rest of today. My mind is tired from trying to figure out what is going on around me! hahahahahahahahahahaha
We are going to end our errand trip with a visit to Le Macaron for my very delayed birthday cake extravaganza! I am all ready trying to decide between the lemon matcha cake and the lavender cake dome. I don't think they put enough lavender flavour into it, so right now the matcha cake is winning the battle for a decision! hahaha
Sunday, June 16, 2019
An Early Start Tomorrow
I am taking Kat to the cancer clinic very early in the morning. The ER is completely backed up tonight, packed out, not a bed available, a possible wait time of 9 hours to be assessed, so Kat is staying at home tonight. She has a bit of left over pain killer from her last surgery that she has the pharmacist's permission to take to get her through the night. So, please pray she can be seen early in the morning and that she can get help. Please pray for me that I will be physically mobile enough and can juggle my meal times properly in order to be of maximum assistance to her. Another lady from the church who will be at the hospital for other reasons is going to come to the clinic shortly after we arrive and between her and I will decide who should stay to take Kat home after she is assessed and hopefully helped.
I cannot imagine us being in the midst of trying to find accommodation and arrange a move right now if my husband had accepted the job offer in Alberta. Finally we feel useful HERE! So grateful we are free to be of service to a few folk over the summer. God is good! Hopefully the staff at the cancer clinic will also be good to Kat tomorrow.
Thanks for praying. I realize her situation has taken over my blog posts of late, but she just needs to much prayers. I can't help being amazed and encouraged by her never ending good cheer and her trust in God in the midst of seemingly never ending suffering...it isn't just the cancer. There are many other terrible trials in her life that she has to deal with every day and if I had to live her life I would have given up many years ago. Wow........
I cannot imagine us being in the midst of trying to find accommodation and arrange a move right now if my husband had accepted the job offer in Alberta. Finally we feel useful HERE! So grateful we are free to be of service to a few folk over the summer. God is good! Hopefully the staff at the cancer clinic will also be good to Kat tomorrow.
Thanks for praying. I realize her situation has taken over my blog posts of late, but she just needs to much prayers. I can't help being amazed and encouraged by her never ending good cheer and her trust in God in the midst of seemingly never ending suffering...it isn't just the cancer. There are many other terrible trials in her life that she has to deal with every day and if I had to live her life I would have given up many years ago. Wow........
Fathers Day Treats
Our new associate pastor preached at this morning's service. It was encouraging, old fashioned worhipful preaching that wasn't perhaps all that informative of anything new or deep theologically, but it was a real "let's give glory to God" kind of sermon. We thoroughly enjoyed it.
Our choir managed to get through all three anthems without blowing it too badly, hahaha. My husband said there was one we did particularly well, so that was encouraging. hahaha I didn't ask him about the other two and he didn't volunteer an opinion, so.....hahahahaha.
Coffee hour was particularly fun this week as there were so many people who wanted to chatter. My there are a lot of interesting people in that congregation.
Our church mission team arrived safely at the seminary in Lebanon a few days ago, landing at their destination just in time to take in a conference session led by author Philip Yancey. One of the team sent us a photo of herself posing with Mr. Yancey. She was thrilled to finally meet the author of books she has enjoyed over the years. It will be a tough week at a refugee camp for our team, so they spent part of yesterday at the beach relaxing. The trip will include an international conference as well, giving them a chance to meet the seminary students there who come from all over the world to study theology. So happy our people get to see for themselves how life works in a refugee camp so they can contrast it to our lives here. I think it will be a bit of an eye opener for some of the younger members of the team and I suspect it will greatly inspire them in their outreach and mission goals for their own lives in the future.
After church I took my husband to his favourite breakfast place for the all day Sunday breakfast. In honour of Father's Day there was actually a double portion of everything....urp! We brought home ALL the toast so we could concentrate on eating the hashbrowns instead! After the meal we took a good long walk through a nearby grocery store and picked up a few necessities, then came home and did some more exercising so we could both wear off the potato carbs. hahaha
Our son SKYPE'd with us for a good half hour or more after we got home. He got himself a new haircut and looks just great! He is happy, working hard and happily at a new temporary position and is applying to have his passport and medical insurance renewed over this next week. Praying there will be no problems with the passport renewal. He has an art collector back here in Canada who MAY be interested in purchasing one of his new works and if so, that would cover his visa renewal, but we will see how that goes......praying for the right outcome. Either way he has to return to Canada for several days before the end of July in order to get his health care renewed properly and he will have to pay extra to have his passport expedited as he cannot send it in to them while he is out of the country. We were all wishing we could afford to go and meet him in Vancouver for a few days while he is back in the country, but it just isn't possible. Well, until we do get to see him once again, SKYPE is a wonderful thing!
I had a nice Father's Day call with my dad today. He was feeling cheery, had received my card and loved the gentle humour of its message. He was thrilled to tell me all about the marvellous meals the dining room there has been providing to all the residents of late. Mom also sounded well and happy. Dad just got the news that his blood count has actually improved over the past 3 months, moving him away from the edge of developing true leukaemia, so he is pretty happy. I am delighted for him. Mom also is feeling perkier knowing he is improving and seeing a bit of a positive difference in his ability to stay awake and go places more often for longer periods of time. I am so happy for both of them.
Terrible side effects have hit Kat today, her 3rd day post chemotherapy. Her pharmacist told her that her side effect pain is SO extreme that she needs to get to the cancer clinic tomorrow morning as soon as it opens, to find out if she is actually having an allergic reaction. I am trying to wrap my head around our city having a cancer clinic that is closed every weekend!! There is no emergency number to call, no cancer specialists available....is this the norm for other cities? I know so little about these things, but I am learning quickly! While I do understand it on the one hand, on the other hand what is a person to do if they need specific to cancer assistance on a weekend? Emergency can't do much and if she goes there she is exposed to all the bacteria and viruses in the waiting and exam rooms while her immune system is compromised. Sigh....I am trying not to freak out right now but it isn't easy. All I can do is sit here and pray and wait to hear from her or her roommate as to what is happening next. Thanks praying folk. Things continue to go from bad to worse for her and the ongoing, ever growing problems are almost unbelievable.
On the happy side, Val's hip injection seems to be working pretty well for her. She was able to come to church this morning and even brought her elderly father with her. What a treat to see her looking healthier and in less pain. Thank you Lord and thank you prayer warriors. Long may it last!
Well, for those of you who celebrate or at least acknowledge Father's Day, have a good one and may you have happy memories of your dad and/or of your own fatherhood experiences.
Our choir managed to get through all three anthems without blowing it too badly, hahaha. My husband said there was one we did particularly well, so that was encouraging. hahaha I didn't ask him about the other two and he didn't volunteer an opinion, so.....hahahahaha.
Coffee hour was particularly fun this week as there were so many people who wanted to chatter. My there are a lot of interesting people in that congregation.
Our church mission team arrived safely at the seminary in Lebanon a few days ago, landing at their destination just in time to take in a conference session led by author Philip Yancey. One of the team sent us a photo of herself posing with Mr. Yancey. She was thrilled to finally meet the author of books she has enjoyed over the years. It will be a tough week at a refugee camp for our team, so they spent part of yesterday at the beach relaxing. The trip will include an international conference as well, giving them a chance to meet the seminary students there who come from all over the world to study theology. So happy our people get to see for themselves how life works in a refugee camp so they can contrast it to our lives here. I think it will be a bit of an eye opener for some of the younger members of the team and I suspect it will greatly inspire them in their outreach and mission goals for their own lives in the future.
After church I took my husband to his favourite breakfast place for the all day Sunday breakfast. In honour of Father's Day there was actually a double portion of everything....urp! We brought home ALL the toast so we could concentrate on eating the hashbrowns instead! After the meal we took a good long walk through a nearby grocery store and picked up a few necessities, then came home and did some more exercising so we could both wear off the potato carbs. hahaha
Our son SKYPE'd with us for a good half hour or more after we got home. He got himself a new haircut and looks just great! He is happy, working hard and happily at a new temporary position and is applying to have his passport and medical insurance renewed over this next week. Praying there will be no problems with the passport renewal. He has an art collector back here in Canada who MAY be interested in purchasing one of his new works and if so, that would cover his visa renewal, but we will see how that goes......praying for the right outcome. Either way he has to return to Canada for several days before the end of July in order to get his health care renewed properly and he will have to pay extra to have his passport expedited as he cannot send it in to them while he is out of the country. We were all wishing we could afford to go and meet him in Vancouver for a few days while he is back in the country, but it just isn't possible. Well, until we do get to see him once again, SKYPE is a wonderful thing!
I had a nice Father's Day call with my dad today. He was feeling cheery, had received my card and loved the gentle humour of its message. He was thrilled to tell me all about the marvellous meals the dining room there has been providing to all the residents of late. Mom also sounded well and happy. Dad just got the news that his blood count has actually improved over the past 3 months, moving him away from the edge of developing true leukaemia, so he is pretty happy. I am delighted for him. Mom also is feeling perkier knowing he is improving and seeing a bit of a positive difference in his ability to stay awake and go places more often for longer periods of time. I am so happy for both of them.
Terrible side effects have hit Kat today, her 3rd day post chemotherapy. Her pharmacist told her that her side effect pain is SO extreme that she needs to get to the cancer clinic tomorrow morning as soon as it opens, to find out if she is actually having an allergic reaction. I am trying to wrap my head around our city having a cancer clinic that is closed every weekend!! There is no emergency number to call, no cancer specialists available....is this the norm for other cities? I know so little about these things, but I am learning quickly! While I do understand it on the one hand, on the other hand what is a person to do if they need specific to cancer assistance on a weekend? Emergency can't do much and if she goes there she is exposed to all the bacteria and viruses in the waiting and exam rooms while her immune system is compromised. Sigh....I am trying not to freak out right now but it isn't easy. All I can do is sit here and pray and wait to hear from her or her roommate as to what is happening next. Thanks praying folk. Things continue to go from bad to worse for her and the ongoing, ever growing problems are almost unbelievable.
On the happy side, Val's hip injection seems to be working pretty well for her. She was able to come to church this morning and even brought her elderly father with her. What a treat to see her looking healthier and in less pain. Thank you Lord and thank you prayer warriors. Long may it last!
Well, for those of you who celebrate or at least acknowledge Father's Day, have a good one and may you have happy memories of your dad and/or of your own fatherhood experiences.
Saturday, June 15, 2019
A Little Pain, A Little Sorrow, A Little Confusion...and LOTSA GOOD STUFF!!
The coming week is looking pretty great! Despite the ongoing hassles of daily life and health, there are so many wonderful things to look forward to over the next few days!
Tomorrow is our final choir performance before summer break. Our director has us singing THREE anthems! hahahaha Yeah...okay then...we'll see how that goes over on Father's Day when most of the families there just want church to be over early so they can take their dads and grandpas out for lunch! hahaha I am looking forward to the morning. My husband is all ready done teaching the adult Sunday School class so he can just relax and enjoy the service.
Tuesday it will not only be my husband out with his friends for early morning tea time. I am going out for breakfast with a choir buddy and we always have a wonderful time!
Wednesday evening we are planning to go to the Common Cup concert at All Saints Anglican Church. The proceeds will to to the Canadian Grain Bank...a really important charity.
Thursday it is off to Moose Jaw to have the car repaired. It should mean, since the appointment is once again very early in the morning, that we can go out for a light breakfast while we wait for the car to be fixed. Every time we go there it seems we stumble across old friends, so who knows who we may end up having breakfast with!
Friday evening we are going to an 80th birthday party for a friend who still has the energy and motivation and busyness of a 50 year old. He plays racquet ball two or three times a week and stays in fabulous shape! We are humbled by his dedication to maintaining good health and strength! WE are lazy....lazy I tell you!!
So, interspersed with all these fun activities will be the usual daily tasks here at home and it is nice to have the ability to get back to them with a lot less hip pain thanks to the physio. We still have to fulfill my one birthday request that we just didn't get to for one reason or another this past week: tea and a fancy dessert at Le Macaron! A mid afternoon treat would be quite wonderful if I just eat a simple low carb breakfast and lunch! As of yet, no birthday cake, BUT it is coming soon! Vive Le Macaron!!
Tomorrow is our final choir performance before summer break. Our director has us singing THREE anthems! hahahaha Yeah...okay then...we'll see how that goes over on Father's Day when most of the families there just want church to be over early so they can take their dads and grandpas out for lunch! hahaha I am looking forward to the morning. My husband is all ready done teaching the adult Sunday School class so he can just relax and enjoy the service.
Tuesday it will not only be my husband out with his friends for early morning tea time. I am going out for breakfast with a choir buddy and we always have a wonderful time!
Wednesday evening we are planning to go to the Common Cup concert at All Saints Anglican Church. The proceeds will to to the Canadian Grain Bank...a really important charity.
Thursday it is off to Moose Jaw to have the car repaired. It should mean, since the appointment is once again very early in the morning, that we can go out for a light breakfast while we wait for the car to be fixed. Every time we go there it seems we stumble across old friends, so who knows who we may end up having breakfast with!
Friday evening we are going to an 80th birthday party for a friend who still has the energy and motivation and busyness of a 50 year old. He plays racquet ball two or three times a week and stays in fabulous shape! We are humbled by his dedication to maintaining good health and strength! WE are lazy....lazy I tell you!!
So, interspersed with all these fun activities will be the usual daily tasks here at home and it is nice to have the ability to get back to them with a lot less hip pain thanks to the physio. We still have to fulfill my one birthday request that we just didn't get to for one reason or another this past week: tea and a fancy dessert at Le Macaron! A mid afternoon treat would be quite wonderful if I just eat a simple low carb breakfast and lunch! As of yet, no birthday cake, BUT it is coming soon! Vive Le Macaron!!
Jesus Loves the Little Children!
One of the things my husband enjoys doing at some of the church services he presides at is lead a children's story before dismissing the kids to their Sunday School classes. One Sunday recently he had a particularly attentive bunch! Such cuties!
The story was about how just like electrical equipment needs to be plugged into a power source in order to work properly, so we need to be plugged into Jesus and the power of God's Holy Spirit to live our lives the way God designed them to be. The kids ate this one right up! hahahahaha
The story was about how just like electrical equipment needs to be plugged into a power source in order to work properly, so we need to be plugged into Jesus and the power of God's Holy Spirit to live our lives the way God designed them to be. The kids ate this one right up! hahahahaha
New Purse, New Weather Forecast
In the process of assisting a friend in her search for a new purse, I ended up with one myself today! It is brown...YES, brown! For those of you seeking after an actual BROWN purse, they do exist after all, although they remain difficult to nearly impossible to find! To prove that I found one here is a photo:
There, you see? A BROWN purse! Will wonders never cease!!?? Thank you Infiniti Leather at Victoria Square Mall!!
We have been waiting all day for the predicted thunder storm. We waited all afternoon and all we got was more warm sunshine, with the storm clouds visible in the distance in all directions. If we weren't having a drought that is causing all manner of problems for other people I would never complain about this dry weather. I like it! One of the reasons I like it is because the mosquitoes do not!! YES!! Being able to go outside any time of the day or night and not have to be concerned about being bitten by the little blighters is equal to one fantastic summer!! By dinner time this evening we were under a severe thunderstorm watch, but now it is after midnight and there is still no rolling of thunder, no flashing of lightning and no pitter patter of falling raindrops. The warning was lifted a little while ago and we can only hope that TOMORROW's predicted rain will actually arrive. The temperature will take quite a plunge to +15C for a daytime high the next couple of days as a cold front moves through, but it seems that same front has dumped all its rain into the southern-most part of the province. Here's hoping for a good downfall here tomorrow and/or the day after.
I had fun running errands today. Banking and spending my birthday money on new art pens, the aforementioned purse and a wonderful new wallet, made for a very fun time this morning. I left my cane in the car as I wandered about in the mall and that felt good. I felt quite safe to leave it behind all day today. Physio is a wonderful thing! Another month to 6 weeks of that and I should be fine again.
This afternoon I took the fruits of my husband's cooking labours to some friends in need of meal assistance. My husband made fabulous lentil/potato soup and chicken noodle soup, as well as a giant pot of baked beans with large ham chunks. Everything is delicious and our friends have all ready consumed what I delivered to them. Being able to help out a few friends at last, after neither of us having any energy left for personal pastoral ministry for so long, is another happy confirmation that we have made the right decision to remain here. We have a tremendous number of local friends in need right now.
It was a grand day! Tomorrow is laundy day once again so my hip will get a good work out climbing up and down stairs as my replacement activity for taking weekends off from physio as directed.
There, you see? A BROWN purse! Will wonders never cease!!?? Thank you Infiniti Leather at Victoria Square Mall!!
We have been waiting all day for the predicted thunder storm. We waited all afternoon and all we got was more warm sunshine, with the storm clouds visible in the distance in all directions. If we weren't having a drought that is causing all manner of problems for other people I would never complain about this dry weather. I like it! One of the reasons I like it is because the mosquitoes do not!! YES!! Being able to go outside any time of the day or night and not have to be concerned about being bitten by the little blighters is equal to one fantastic summer!! By dinner time this evening we were under a severe thunderstorm watch, but now it is after midnight and there is still no rolling of thunder, no flashing of lightning and no pitter patter of falling raindrops. The warning was lifted a little while ago and we can only hope that TOMORROW's predicted rain will actually arrive. The temperature will take quite a plunge to +15C for a daytime high the next couple of days as a cold front moves through, but it seems that same front has dumped all its rain into the southern-most part of the province. Here's hoping for a good downfall here tomorrow and/or the day after.
I had fun running errands today. Banking and spending my birthday money on new art pens, the aforementioned purse and a wonderful new wallet, made for a very fun time this morning. I left my cane in the car as I wandered about in the mall and that felt good. I felt quite safe to leave it behind all day today. Physio is a wonderful thing! Another month to 6 weeks of that and I should be fine again.
This afternoon I took the fruits of my husband's cooking labours to some friends in need of meal assistance. My husband made fabulous lentil/potato soup and chicken noodle soup, as well as a giant pot of baked beans with large ham chunks. Everything is delicious and our friends have all ready consumed what I delivered to them. Being able to help out a few friends at last, after neither of us having any energy left for personal pastoral ministry for so long, is another happy confirmation that we have made the right decision to remain here. We have a tremendous number of local friends in need right now.
It was a grand day! Tomorrow is laundy day once again so my hip will get a good work out climbing up and down stairs as my replacement activity for taking weekends off from physio as directed.
Friday, June 14, 2019
Little By Little.....
Little by little the lawns and garden plants and newly sprouted crops are becoming dry, stubby and in danger of dying due to the early drought conditions.
Little by little we are getting the myriad new geese trained not to hang around the pathway to our car by tossing a large plastic lid at them when they stop to graze in that area.
Little by little I am seeing some temporary improvements in both my parents' health situations and I feel like I can exhale for awhile over their situation.
Little by little my husband's general health has improved since leaving his job six months ago.
Little by little he is accomplishing a number of personal and house projects he has been waiting for years, in some cases, to have enough energy to complete.
Little by little my hip is improving with the physiotherapy and I am getting slowly back to a more normal routine.
Little by little it is sinking into my pea sized brain that my weekly church committments are at a seasonal end and it will be okay to think about other things over the summer, until my anticipation begins to build about resuming them in September.
Little by little I am accepting the fact that I am 65 years old and that life as I have always known it is bound to change now that I am officially a senior citizen and battling my own "elder health" issues.
Little by little I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that our son is likely going to have to return to Canada in a few months' time and may be living with us temporarily until he gets jobs and accommodation of his own all sorted out.
Little by little I am all ready working on accepting the idea that if our son does have to move in for awhile, he will also be leaving again as soon as he gets things together for himself and the three of us will once more be geographically far apart.
Little by little I am accepting the fact that my husband is going to have to return to paid employment in September and the fun of having him home all the time will come to an end.
Little by little....bite sized chunks of reality...teensy weensy changes on the way....little by little....just the right speed for changes to happen in my life!
Little by little we are getting the myriad new geese trained not to hang around the pathway to our car by tossing a large plastic lid at them when they stop to graze in that area.
Little by little I am seeing some temporary improvements in both my parents' health situations and I feel like I can exhale for awhile over their situation.
Little by little my husband's general health has improved since leaving his job six months ago.
Little by little he is accomplishing a number of personal and house projects he has been waiting for years, in some cases, to have enough energy to complete.
Little by little my hip is improving with the physiotherapy and I am getting slowly back to a more normal routine.
Little by little it is sinking into my pea sized brain that my weekly church committments are at a seasonal end and it will be okay to think about other things over the summer, until my anticipation begins to build about resuming them in September.
Little by little I am accepting the fact that I am 65 years old and that life as I have always known it is bound to change now that I am officially a senior citizen and battling my own "elder health" issues.
Little by little I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that our son is likely going to have to return to Canada in a few months' time and may be living with us temporarily until he gets jobs and accommodation of his own all sorted out.
Little by little I am all ready working on accepting the idea that if our son does have to move in for awhile, he will also be leaving again as soon as he gets things together for himself and the three of us will once more be geographically far apart.
Little by little I am accepting the fact that my husband is going to have to return to paid employment in September and the fun of having him home all the time will come to an end.
Little by little....bite sized chunks of reality...teensy weensy changes on the way....little by little....just the right speed for changes to happen in my life!
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