Great Quote!

"Silence is the absence of every noise that wants something."  --John Cage

Not Sure About This Particular Request

A few of you have asked me if I could use this blog to explain, starting tomorrow as my husband and I enter yet another faith walk for sufficient financial provision each month, exactly what God does for us, how he manages to help us get our bills paid and our needs looked after during however long it is that we don't have sufficient income from this few hours of work each month, coupled with the pensions.  As we try to follow the path he seems to have set before us in terms of ministry, we of course assume he will help us with the necessities of life that these ministries do not pay for.

To be honest, I am not sure about this.  I am going to have to pray on it for awhile.

There will be times, no doubt, when I will feel free and inspired to report on some kind of glorious, completely unexpected occurrence covers the needs that wages and pensions don't cover, but I feel odd about making a daily or weekly habit of it.

Reporting every detail of God's working in our lives with such regularity can sometimes sound like a bit of a brag fest....ooooh, look at us and what God is doing for us!  Aren't we spiritually special???!!?? Of course we don't feel that way, but with the absence of "tone of voice" that comes with writing rather than speaking face to face, it is possible for attitudes to be misunderstood.

It isn't that God shouldn't get ALL the glory and praise for the way he cares for us as we attempt to be faithful followers, but often he cares for us even when we fail miserably...in fact he has always cared for us and we have failed time and time again to be his faithful followers.  In a sense that actually qualifies him for even more praise and glory for the love he pours out on us when we least deserve it.  I am just not certain he wants us to record every last detail of his working in our lives in this particular way....or maybe he is simply cautioning me on HOW to report his movements in our personal lives over the next weeks/months.

I don't know....will see what I receive peace about sharing and in how much detail as time passes.

Thanks for understanding that something this personal has to be discussed carefully and honestly.  Today was the last application for EI.  Now the faith walk begins....again......we have never been more grateful for the lessons of the past regarding God's care for his children!

Carpe Diem? Nope!

Carpe Aeternateum: seize eternity!

Why settle for a day?

A Free Concert!

Tonight and tomorrow night Regina is hosting the end of summer Shake the Lake music festival and right now we have our windows open, listening to Burton Cummings singing all his old hits from the 1970's.  He just finished Clap For the Wolfman, hahaha!  We are awaiting his next tune to come pouring forth from the grounds of the Conexus Centre!  So glad we didn't pay the $80 a person to be at the concert stage area!  hahaha  

And now for his next oldie: Laughing!

We are going to up late tonight....no matter how tired we both get there is no way we will be able to sleep through the amplifiers pumping out the sound all across the city.   Hopefully the city will be enforcing its midnight concert shut down...normally the noise bylaw comes into effect at 11pm, but for such concerts as this there is some special exemption that can be applied for to get an extra hour (or more?) out of the performers....and our ear drums. hahaha 

In the past few years we have lived here we have discovered it is better to leave the windows open and listen to the music whether we want to or not, rather than shut the windows and listen to them rattle from the over the top sound waves....yikes! Tonight the whole building is shaking as the band wales away on the drums and electric guitars. Too bad the out of town retreat weekend for us was last weekend! 

 No offense Mr. Cummings, but we enjoy your moldy oldies far more at 7pm than at midnight to be quite honest.

Back On Schedule For the Fall

Real life continues to encroach upon the lovely, comfy bubble of existence we have managed to maintain for the past nearly nine months....sigh...it was good while it lasted, right? Tomorrow is our last application for EI payments, Sunday my husband begins his priestly duties in his new parish, on Monday the final forms for applying for my husband's pension will be sent to the head office,

Tonight I received an email reminding me that it is nearly time for my church women's book club to begin.  The group sub-committee has decided upon a book and I am quite excited to read it:  Surprised by Paradox by Jen Pollock Michel.   
 
The following description is from Amazon: 

"Oversimplifications are dangerous. Especially in theology and public life we need and rely on people who are capable of living into the challenging paradoxes we find in the Gospels. Rich with personal stories and reflections, Michel's explorations of what it means to live by 'both-and' rather than 'either-or' offer a vision of Christian hospitality without laxity and theological integrity without rigidity. This is a timely, practical, and thought-provoking book."  

It is divided into 4 sections: Incarnation, Kingdom, Grace, Lament, and each of these sections is subdivided into four short chapters. At the end of each section there are a number of thought-provoking questions for reflection and discussion. I am quite excited to read this book. Although it apparently is written quite simply, it will take many of our attendees beyond the usual simplistic Bible study and hopefully get us all thinking a bit more theologically.  The committee that chose the book consists of an Old Testament Greek scholar and professor, an English major and teacher and a very practical down to earth woman who has experienced some tough times in life.  It is a great combination of people who made the choice of reading material for us this term.  I am looking forward to this term far more than when we read novels and do easy Bible studies.  YAY!!

However, as much as I am planning to enjoy book club this term, it is one more swiftly upcoming event that reminds me the cocoon is about to burst around here.  Paid ministry, fall church programmes, Tai Chi, book club.....waaaaaaahhhhhh...I want our safe, secure, unrealistic bubble existence back!!!  

Well....not really.  Eventually it would become kind of boring and monotonous....wouldn't it?   Wouldn't it???

 

Sure wouldn't mind finding out actually........

 

Over the past year I have decided that Planet Reality is not really my favourite place to live!  I far prefer the relaxed, fuzzy, emotionally padded and perhaps somewhat delusional world of Cocoon Land!  Sigh.....

To the Conservative Party of Canada: STOP HARASSING ME!

I am fed up with this political party! In the last month my husband and I have received six telephone calls from three different phone numbers asking if Andrew Scheer and the Conservative candidate in our riding would receive our votes in the upcoming federal election.

BACK OFF BUDDIES!!!!!

How dare you ask such a question in a democratic country with a secret ballot voting system! How dare you????? Who I or my husband vote for is no one’s business but our own! True Conservatives, grounded in the rights and freedoms surrounding federal elections agreed to back in the founding days of Canadian democracy are aware of this fact. Get with the voting procedures programme people!

With each phone call, either my husband or myself have requested our number be removed from the calling list, a request which has been instantly agreed to by the caller. No wonder our request for removal has been met with such cheerful agreement: being removed from one offender’s call list simply means we will be added to a different Conservative Party phone harasser’s call list. Yippee! Gotcha Mr. and Mrs. registered voter!

Along with a statement regarding the use of secret ballots used here in Canada, we have also told the callers we will not vote for any political party who have representatives bothering us with unwanted pre-election phone calls!

We are totally fed up with the pre-election tactics of the Conservative Party of Canada. LEAVE US ALONE ALL READY!

If your reps want to call us in order to lay out your party’s political platforms m that is an acceptable reason to tie up my phone line. Asking for my voting information while supplying none of your own? UNACCEPTABLE!

It Just Seems So Odd.....

....that my husband is going back to work...even for a few days a month....at all!  I have become so happily used to him being here all the time.  We talk and share deep thoughts and hopes and dreams and discouragements and fears and joys.  I could live like this for the rest of my days, to be quite honest.

HOWEVER, reality is that we need income and my husband does need something more interesting to do that chatter with me all day every day. hahaha  So, he will start his new priest-in-charge position this very Sunday!  I am happy for him to be in a parish where he is all ready respected and loved!  He is most fortunate that in three of his four major parish involvements, he has been respected and accepted and very much appreciated.  Not all priests can say that honestly.  This is a great way to complete his days in public ministry, but it is only a few days a month, making the income negligible.

However, this is now a retirement position: hence the title of priest-in-charge rather than incumbent.  He has applied for his little pension so that we can retain our present level of medical coverage and have a few more dollars for the monthly budget.  If there was no income tax to pay we could likely scrimp along just fine on these two sources of income coupled with our government pensions.  So, it is going to be fascinating to see how the rest of each month's income will be made up.  I am seriously praying he will get more chances to teach weekend and mid-week seminars this fall and winter until our lease runs out here at the townhouse next June.  At that point we may be much more able to put together a move to an even less expensive place to live and my husband may at last be able to face the no longer remote possibility of having to downsize substantially! (MAY being the operative word, hahahaha...my husband the hoarder)

The way things stand at the moment my husband will not have to give up his mid week retired pastors' meetings or his mens' breakfasts that he enjoys so very much. That is exciting because those are the things that speak to his heart and give him energy to continue studying theology, preparing sermons and putting together seminars like the one he taught last weekend on Prayer and Praise in the Psalms.  My that sounds "dry" doesn't it? haha I assure you it certainly wasn't! He is an excellent teacher, but we need to find better titles for his sessions!

Now that he is returning to spending his Saturdays completing his sermons and otherwise preparing for Sunday's ministry, I will shift my laundry and ironing or house cleaning schedule back to the weekends.  I cope much better with these Saturdays where he works if I can be busy here at home doing something useful.   

I am looking forward to the final Sunday evening summer BBQ at my church this weekend.  My husband will be able to come with me, so that is great. Now that he will be absent 3 Sundays a month to take his own parish, the extra things like this will be even more important to the continuation of the building up of new friendships there.  I will have to be more creative come the middle of winter as far as how I get to and from my church on Sunday mornings, since my husband will be gone out of town to his own parish with our vehicle.  

I am excited to have a new committment to try at church this coming autumn.  Since having to give up singing in the choir due to the loss of my singing voice...thank you osteo meds....I have hooked up with a group who do Tai Chi and Bible study together at the church on Saturday mornings.  That should be a lot of fun, plus it is much easier to attend in winter than the Thursday evening choir practises!  I will miss the camaraderie of the choir members, but I have close enough relationships with those people now that we can see each other socially in other circumstances.  A new activity is always fun to try!

This weekend will be a bit crazy in our area of the city.  The past two days have seen a great influx of folk at our end of the lake for some longboat races.  Tomorrow we may wander over and try to see some of them before the event ends.  It is going to be very, very noisy on Friday and Saturday, right up until midnight or later as the Shake the Lake annual end of summer concert is taking place outside Conexus Centre just a few blocks away at the other end of the lake.  I wouldn't mind hearing a couple of the old dudes, "has beens" from my generation of music lovers: Burton Cummings and Jack Semple, but neither my husband nor myself are keen to spend $80 to $120 each to have to sit/stand/mosh/dodge drunks/choke on weed smoke while the other acts are performing.   Our townhouse walls and windows will be reverberating all afternoon and evening two days in a row while all the music is happening....this happens every year, but I have to admit that this year there has been a distinct lack of rock'n'roll pounding through our place on the summer weekends compared to other summers.  I am surprised to discover I have actually enjoyed the loss of the "free concerts" we have listened to in previous years.  Old age I guess.

Tomorrow my husband meets with his monthly political gathering and I have a friend coming into town from Moose Jaw for a visit.  She has just returned from a Greek cruise and I cannot wait to hear her stories from the trip.  She is SO hilarious and can make the simplest experience sound like the funniest thing that could ever happen anywhere on the earth. Can't wait!!!

Although my husband is only returning to work for a few days a month, it feels like we have come to the end of an extended holiday. In the past nearly 9 months we have not had any actual holidays, have not done much that was all that exciting or riveting or wonderful, or even all that much fun to be honest, but still, we have been together the entire time and I have loved every second of it.  Sigh......

Guess “Summer” Summer Is Over....waaaaahhhhh!

Our wonderful warm summer weather seems to have come to an end all ready. It will be +26C but that is the warmest day time high forecast over the next couple of weeks. Overnight lows will be dipping to -4C to -6C. Hopefully there won’t be any frost until later on into September, but you never know around here. Good old prairies.

Walked to my hair appointment this morning in the pouring rain. I arrived looking like a drowned rat, but by the time my hair was cut and styled I looked pretty good from the neck up! From the neck down I was still covered in damp, wrinkled pants and soggy, water stained hiking boots, so I didn’t bother trying to window shop while waiting for the bus to go home. My suspicion was that store clerks would take one look at me and start following me around the store trying to catch me stealing something because from the neck down I looked like a street person. I would have walked home, but I had a time constraint with company coming for lunch. After standing at the bus stop for ten minutes in a teeming downpour, I’m fairly certain I left a puddle on the bus seat after my ride home.

I got cleaned up and got the bison and rice cooking, the cheese and pickle plate arranged, a dried fruit assortment put out in a colourful dish and the salad prepped. It was fun. Our company are close friends we have been through a lot with and who recently received an amazing answer to prayers for a struggling business venture. It was fantastic news and we are almost as excited as they are about the way the answers arrived.

Days like today give me hope and courage for the possibly confusing days ahead! Tomorrow is supposed to be the day we sit down and figure out exactly how much net pay will be coming starting in September and from what we know all ready, I am thinking our trust in God’s provision may be tested! Thankfully it isn’t the first time at this rodeo! hahaha So grateful for the retreat weekend’s teaching from the Psalms!

Post Weekend.....

We came home last evening to some tough news about a former parishioner who, after seeming to have a wonderful response to chemotherapy, has cratered completely. The chemo suddenly ceased to work, tumors have grown and physically our friend has failed incredibly over the past week.  It is not looking good.  Please shoot up a prayer for Sandy and her very frightened husband, for strength to cope with this news and with what appears to be inevitable in the immediate future.  

(I had a cancer test myself today...just a regular one that I have every year, but I no longer have the chutzpah to assume all will be well as I see so many relatives and friends struggling mightily with this disease.)

I am glad we spent the weekend studying the Psalms!  The greatness of God is praised continually by the psalmists despite their honest and real complaints.  The exhortations to the soul to begin to focus on his omnipotence and to share the glory of his personal acts and his moving in history with others, to encourage others to praise him too, puts the rest of my own life into perspective.  It is fleeting and there are many reasons for joy in the midst of the trials that all humans experience, some of them pretty dire and tragic. 

We came home buoyed up once again about God's ability to look after things here and now, but particularly in the big picture. 

Today we had no particular plans but the day went so smoothly!  I had my appointment with the doctor this morning and I have never had my test done so painlessly.  While the procedure was happening she talked to me about the tomatoes she is growing in her garden and wanted to know about the Sun Gold cherry tomatoes I have been growing on my deck.  It was a lovely conversation.  My walk to the clinic and back was without incident....no pain for either ankle, both of which I have damaged accidentally in recent weeks.  I picked up some salad fixings on the way home and carried them in the amazing tote bag my Alberta friend made for me.  That crazy bag has been used several times each week to carry purchases and I am wondering how I ever managed without it!!

This afternoon we tinkered around here cleaning all the bug guts off the windshield from our travels on the weekend, trimmed some "fungusy" leaves off the tomato plant, did some ministry related computer emails, ate a simple supper to start dietary recovery after all the feasting we did at the camp and watched some tv. It was a relaxing day but still we accomplished a few things.

Tomorrow morning I am off to the hairdresser's rather early for a badly needed haircut.  It has been SEVEN weeks since I last had one...no wonder I look so shaggy!  The shape of the cut is still there, but wow...there is just too much volume at this point.

We are so excited to be hosting friends from Moose Jaw for lunch tomorrow.  They called this evening to say they are on their way east for a badly needed holiday and hoped to see us along the way.  I am thawing some ground bison to make simple burgers for the meal.  They are very special friends and we have gone through many tough situations together knowing we have each others' backs in prayer and by helping each other out in many ways!  What a treat to have this unexpected chance for a good visit over a meal.  Now I am SUPER glad I cleaned this suite so thoroughly before we left for the camp weekend! hahaha

My husband finalized his new ministry committment today by withdrawing from another group's application process.  It too would have been a good job, lots more pay for lots more work, but we agree the one he now has is the right one for reasons we can see clearly but likely also for reasons as yet unknown to us.

It was a sunny but windy day today and tonight we had a drenching rain in the late evening.  I may end up taking the bus to my hair appointment tomorrow due to scheduled thunder showers, but I am hoping I can walk there. I love early morning walks!

It will be interesting to see what the rest of our mostly unscheduled week holds for us!

Hmmmm....An Unexpectedly Great Weekend!

I didn't want to go to the church camp this weekend to the lay retreat my husband was invited to speak at in the lovely Cypress Hills.  I am not a camper.  I am not a fan of camp food. I detest both bugs and dirt. Even though my husband and I would be staying 30km away from the camp in a nice, dry, warm, relatively insect free hotel, I still was not excited about being stuck at a very quaint, okay...absolutely decrepit....camp facility for the entire weekend.  I am not a fan of the "great outdoors", obviously.  

However....once I got through the first evening's "burgers and weenies", typical camp fare, things began to improve...I mean REALLY improve. Our hotel was wonderfully comfortable and spacious and we slept well that very first night. The next morning's camp breakfast, prepared for everyone by a couple of local parishioners, consisted of two kinds of quiche along with the expected dry cereals, bowls filled with gorp, and muffins.  Lunch: chicken salad, potato salad, chick pea salad, macaroni salad, endive salad, French bread slathered in garlic butter, plus for dessert a choice of either home made banana cream pie (layers of actual banana slices with only the thinnest of layers of custard holding them together and real whipping cream frothed over the top...a graham crumble crust...to DIE for!!) and apple pie filled with freshly ground cinnamon, my husband's favourite.  There were bowls of chocolate pieces, gummy bears, nuts and fresh fruit available all day, every day.  Dinner last night was a different take on Mac and Cheese that was delicious, more salads and rounds of soft white bread with a fabulous bruschetta piled on top of each round.  Dessert was home made berry pie and home made Black Forest Cake.  Today's breakfast was a bit "simpler"...apple coffee cake along with the usual cereals and mini/giant sized muffins; lunch included potato salad, three kinds of cold cuts, 3 kinds of cheese sliced into thin elongated pieces, four kinds of crackers, fresh fruit, pickles and tomato slices, plus the leftover Mac and Cheese and more pies for dessert.  I gained, I am certain, about 6 pounds in about 36 hours!  One of our cooks is a former military cook and wow...she learned her lessons well!!!

The weather was perfect all weekend: sunny but not too hot during the day, no rain, gentle breezes and chilly nights so good for those fresh air fans sleeping in the old cabins with their sleeping bags tucked up tightly around their ears and under their chins.  As we drove ourselves back to our hotel last night we saw the most beautiful display of lightning covering the sky all around the town.  There was no rain, just fantastic flashes and forks of white and orange light. Amazing!

Yesterday afternoon we had four hours of free time.  Our retreat participants rode their bikes or walked over many kilometers of trails, took time to walk to the lake through a lovely lodge pole pine forest, wandered a couple of kilometers from camp to purchase ice cream treats from the vendor close to the park gates and generally enjoyed the outdoors to the fullest on such a lovely day.  My husband and I took a 3km walk through the forest as well.  What a beautiful experience with few insects in sight, no wind, lots of trail space free of other people, beautiful wild flowers, a carpet of pine and spruce needles under foot.  It was magical!  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The lack of insects, particularly wasps and mosquitoes, made for a perfect wander through the trees for me.  If it was always like that in the wilderness, (and I knew I was going to be staying in a hotel overnight, haha) you wouldn't be able to keep me away.

The response to my husband's teaching sessions was phenomenal.  O how these responses of late are healing a lot of wounds and stresses for him these days.  He is actually looking forward to his little position upcoming and has good ideas formulating in his mind as to how to be a help to his new congregation.  I am thrilled.

Our driving conditions there and back were wonderful...no rain, dry roads....so grateful.  When we arrived at the provincial park in the Hills on Friday afternoon we found out that resident Saskatchewan seniors get free admission to all of the provincial parks in this province. How wonderful!  More gratitude!

The only thing that irritated me is that my husband is learning how to use his phone camera and has discovered if he stands on higher ground than I am standing on and he takes a photo of me, the angle of his camera picks up the background very well, but leaves me looking shorter and squatter (read fatter) than I actually am.  O well....I will share a couple of photos of the site anyway.  I thought he was taking photos of the cabins etc., but he managed to get what looks like a short, tubby me in every one of them. hahaha  

It was a good weekend filled with good teaching, good sleeps, good fellowship and amazing food!  Even when one of our campers got lost in the woods for 3 hours yesterday and needed rescuing, it didn't dampen anyone's enthusiasm over the weekend, not even his!  YAY!!

So, here are a few photos from the weekend:

Who Is That Chubby Chick???

The Perpetrator of the Squat and Fat Photos!

 

The Lodge Pole Pine Forest

Happy Campers

When A Wedding "CEREMONY" Is Apparently Insufficient!

We are chuckling to ourselves over a wedding invitation we received recently from two nearing 30 year olds, idealistic and perhaps a teensy bit pompous students of the sciences, doctorates in hand in several scientific disciplines but perhaps not a great deal of life experience in the non-academic world the rest of us have inhabited now for some years.  

We are invited not to a wedding ceremony but to a Symposium of Marriage!  How cute is that, right?  How "Sheldon Cooper" can you get?  We are quite excited to be able to attend and find out exactly what this Symposium concept will actually be about.  There are all ready two different ethic communities involved in the wedding, so that alone will bring a wonderful flavour to the gathering.

I don't remember the last time either my husband or myself have been this interested in attending a wedding!  It sounds interesting and fun...and definitely has the potential to be different from any other wedding we have ever been invited to!

Living Vicariously

I am so happy our son enjoys sharing his special weekend getaways with us via some photos.  This past weekend he was in Long Island and the East Hamptons.  I am delighted he has had these wonderful chances to get away for a break away with good friends!

Fun with Friends on Long Island

I chased geese all weekend, he chased chickens!

Dipping into the Atlantic in the Hamptons

 Living the high life

Cooling down in the pool at Auntie's house.

The gorgeous girlfriend!

Eli's seafood stew, a fine way to end a relaxing day at the beach.

It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord has given our son a life so far away from the types of places and the plebian lifestyle in which he was raised; how he has had incredible opportunities all over the world to travel and have art shows and learn about art and history.  He has amazing friends and co-workers.  The Lord provides for him in fabulous ways even when work is hard to come by and paintings are not selling consistently at times.  He learned many good lessons about God's provision growing up in our household.  His father has also had many unexpected opportunities to travel to exotic places and I made it as far as Tokyo for a year....enough for me, not being that interested in world travel.  For people who have had a lot of tough breaks over the years we have also had many, many, many fabulous blessings and we are grateful, grateful, grateful!!

Eli is having an art show in Vancouver this coming January and later in the winter he will be having his second show in New York City, so he is pretty happy right now. The visa renewal process is going forward so we are hopeful it will be accepted so he can stay another three years....yup, prayer request. Thanks so much from him and from us.

Dining In This Evening + Health Updates for Prayer Warriors

I think we are eating at home tonight! hahaha  Whoa!  What a surprise after double date week! hahaha  It is chicken sandwiches and salad for us for dinner since we both couldn't wait to finish our left over Indian food from last night's date and ate it for lunch.  hahaha

Got a call from Kat today.  She is still struggling to keep up her magnesium levels after chemo treatments and so she was calling from the treatment centre where a huge amount of magnesium was being pumped into her body via intravenous. The good news is that some of the more extreme exhaustion is starting to pass, a whole week after the last chemo.  SO, she and Val are driving to their favourite lake on the weekend to spend a full week at a cabin in the woods.  I am thrilled they will get away, as they usually spend the majority of the summer at the lake and have been missing it terribly the past couple of summers.  Kat is ecstatic that she gave in to pressure way back in high school and took a biology class. The reason: she still has the text book and it, underneath a soft phone directory, allows Val to sit comfortably in the vehicle for several hours at a time with minimal pain and mobility problems afterward!  O prayer warriors, this is fantastic news for them both. Please, please pray that all WILL go well and that this much needed and deserved little holiday will refresh them body, soul and spirit!  Thanks so much from them to you!

The bonus is that while they are gone, a company is going to be able to come to their house and remove asbestos that was discovered during recent renovations.  When they bought the house no asbestos was declared to be present during the building inspection so who knows what they have been exposed to during their years of living there!!??  O dear, what next for those two valiant women?  All these renovations are costing a fortune and happening during a time when they are both on extended medical leave from work, are both ill and are having painful, debilitating treatments.  CRAZY!!  Your prayers are so appreciated by them both.

Had a good walk with my walking partner this morning.  I am so grateful she had time today to stay for a decent visit afterward.  She is a very interesting person who participates in a wide variety of activities!  Since I spent the entire afternoon ironing because I didn't get the "hang to dry" laundry out of the washing machine in time yesterday to prevent wrinkles, I am extremely happy that the MORNING was such fun!

Well, it is time to make those sandwiches and salads, then start packing up for the conference tomorrow.  We are to get thunderstorms overnight so we are hoping there will be no hail damaging everything...like our vehicle....right before we have to head out once again.  More storms apparently the day we return home, but while we are there it appears...for now at least....that the forecast is for sunny skies and somewhat cool temperatures...YAY!  May it be true! Please pray that my husband does well with his presentation and the discussion sessions and that it is a spiritually uplifting weekend for all the participants.  Thank you!

Double Date Week!!

Yup, you read that right....another date tonight!  hahaha  My husband confessed he is trying to make up for the fact that he at least got a 4 day holiday this year while I didn't get one at all.  hahaha  Hilarious!

So, to celebrate his signing this evening of his Memorandum of Understanding to become the priest in charge at his new part time ministry appointment, we went to DarBar for dinner.  O my....it was fantastic and the temptation to overeat was extreme, BUT I am so proud of both of us!  We each packed up approximately half of our meal and brought it home to eat tomorrow!  My husband's takeout box included basmati rice, naan and fantastic chicken kadhai with peppers and onions, my box contained chicken stuffed naan and chicken tikka masala...a most elevated form of an otherwise rather plebian dish.   Getting two full meals each out of the more expensive dinner menu is quite a coup for us!  It means we both disciplined ourselves to eat a reasonable amount of food this evening, even though we didn't get to eat dinner until 7:30pm.

I lasted that long to eat dinner because this afternoon a new church friend stopped by for tea and she brought an assortment of sweet treats from Tangerine!  Ooooh my goodness....a peanut butter/chocolate square that is to die for, a coconut cake bun that my husband ate then thought he had died and gone to heaven, an amazing (and large) peach crumble muffin and a blueberry and frothy creamcheese stuffed crueller.  Urp!! I just had to try some of the peanut butter chocolate and the crueller.  That certainly blew my diet out of the water this afternoon. O well, too bad, so sad...teehee.  My husband and I walk past Tangerine at least twice a week, but usually on Sunday or after hours when it is closed, so have never been there to enjoy the food....NOT a safe place for me to go when it is open, that is for sure!  Aiiii yiiiii yummmmmy!

Tomorrow my walking partner is coming over in the morning so I am hoping we can make a few kilometers if the weather is as good as it has been the past few days.  Then it will be a marathon of ironing for me after doing all our last week's laundry today.  By tomorrow evening I will be packing up for the weekend seminar.  Should be a lot of fun and it is a nice sized group of somewhere between 10 and 16 attendees...just big enough for good discussion during the question periods.  The hotel we are staying in sounds quite nice and has all the amenities I need for a comfortable stay.  Again, not a holiday for either of us, but at least there will be nice accommodation, some fellowship, shared meals, plus listening to my husband teaching is very encouraging for me.

I was concerned that my husband would not be that thrilled about finding a part time job after all the time he has needed for recovery over the past few months. I needn't have worried.  When he got home from signing the MoU today, he was pretty stoked to have one last chance to be a priest/preacher/pastoral care guy to a congretation that is small but mighty and loves him so much.  He has some good ideas for helping them out in the area of growth.  His brain all ready whirring with ideas is a good sign that he is ready to return to work for at least a few hours a week. YAY!

I slept well last night for a change.  I suspect it is partly because this week all the teenaged geese seem to have at last discovered their new feathers will carry them much farther away for food and drink than our lawns.  The few that still come in the morning are our old regulars who don't even attempt to cross over our back lawn.  The larger group that has shown up in the late afternoons at the far end of our building have not ventured back behind us either.  They are taking wide swaths around us, so it is encouraging that our three weeks' worth of consolidated and consistent efforts to train them away from here have been successful.  Hence I am more relaxed I suspect, knowing I don't have to be checking outside at 6:30am, 2pm, 5pm and 7:30pm each day to put the run on 50 or more geese.  Having seen my parents to assess their situation and realizing they are at a stage right now where there is nothing at all more that I can do for either of them just now other than pray and stay in touch, is also relaxing to some degree.  Hearing how well our son enjoyed his weekend travels to Long Island and the East Hamptons and that in a couple of weeks he will have more work than he can handle again has been good news I have been waiting for.

So, off to find an interesting, (hopefully) book to read among the twenty remaining from my shopping spree last September long weekend at the Big Book Sale.  In only about 1 week's time it will be time for that sale to happen again!  I am not sure I should go to it this year since I am still working on last year's haul! hahaha

Surely am enjoying our record cool snap this past couple of weeks.  The overnight lows are low enough right now that I am shutting the windows at bed time and leaving them closed all night!  I know a lot of people are disappointed in the cooler temperatures, but my husband and I just love it.  It is just right for us!  YAY!

A Common Human Experience!

Date Night

A week with my parents translated into a week of virtually zero exercise opportunities of any real benefit, thus I have been feeling extra tired since arriving home.  There has been a lot of racing about running errands, but no concentrated times of walking or lifting weights or any of the other regular exercise routines....in fact, after catching up on my housecleaning in only half the house, I fell sound asleep on the sofa yesterday afternoon and slept right through my dinner hour, so I ate like a hog at the trough after I woke up...SO HUNGRY...such low blood sugar. Then I felt like a slug with my overstuffed tummy! Sigh....

The overeating meant I was awake most of last night, so was completely depleted of all energy well before completing the housework this morning!  Time to do something about the low energy and new lack of motivation:  I packed up a satchel of paperback novels I have read so far this summer and carried them 3 blocks to the nearest neighbourhood library box where I deposited all 9 books and brought home 5 new ones from the stock in the box.  Then I carried on a few more blocks to the grocery store for a couple of items before wandering home again.  It was good to be outside in the fresh air walking, but the total round trip was under a kilometre.  Disappointing....

My husband had an early morning meeting, then after a couple of hours back at home, a lunch get together with a colleague, followed by several hours at the university library.  I arrived home from my walk shortly before he did...a good 6 km round trip walk for him.  By this time it was getting close to dinner time and since I cooked 3 large pieces of chicken this morning, I assumed we would have some sort of chicken conconction to eat.  However, my husband decided that since he now has less than 2 weeks of actual time off before he starts working weekends again regularly, he wanted to go out for dinner and have a date. Summer and our present income level will both end soon enough!

Where to go?  We decided to give a pub on the north end of the city a try: The Last Straw.  As it turned out it was aptly named in our opinion:  a grubby building, tables that hadn't been cleaned since the lunch rush and the smell of grease emanating from the kitchen.  We didn't stay long enough to even receive menus from the servers, let alone look at what was listed on them.  Perhaps we didn't give the place a chance, but something about it was completely unappealing, so we left almost as soon as we sat down in a grubby booth.  

We headed west and ended up on Rochedale Boulevard at Taps.  We were there once before and pleasantly surprised by the food, as it too has older decor that is nothing to write home about.  The steak sandwich was on special so we gave it a try.  We knew that for $11 there weren't going to be any extras on the plate, like vegetables, to go along with the meat and fries, so I upgraded to yam fries...the fried part, not so good, but there is good fibre in the yams so....  What a pleasant surprise: we asked for medium rare steaks and that is what we got!  Perfectly cooked meat!  Yes, in typical steak sandwich fashion the cuts were less than great quality, but there was plenty of meat and talk about delicious...without being over salted!  There was  hardly any salt on the fries and yam fries either, so we sure did enjoy our meal.

After dinner my husband drove us to Conexus Centre, where we parked in a back lot and walked over to the pathway that runs between the U of R and the lake. We had a nice long walk...LONG walk...that I needed desperately.  There is far less goose poo over there and what is there is concentrated in a few specific areas, leaving the majority of the paved pathway free of that horrible gooey stuff.  We watched the geese, ducks, swans and pelicans on the water and we enjoyed all the cattails and roses and trees and bushes and BUFFALO BEANS!  I have not seen the bright yellow of buffalo bean flowers in several years now. They used to bloom all over the prairies, all around the crocuses, but they have virtually disappeared.  Turns out we were walking in an area that has been designated as a site to grow plants indigenous to southern Saskatchewan that have been disappearing in recent years, hence my precious dark yellow buffalo beans!  I have no idea what the proper name of those plants is since my mother always called them Buffalo Beans, but whatever they are it was incredible to find them growing freely between the university grounds and the lake shore.  YAY!

While we were walking we noticed sun dogs in the sky: wonder what kind of nasty change in the weather we will get over the next couple of days! The weather recently has been perfect for us: day time highs of only +23C -to +27C with no more heatwaves in the offing for the present moment.

We came home and watched a couple of favourite tv shows together to complete our evening date.  

It was a wonderful evening and the best part is that it was utterly spontaneous. My husband came up with the ideas all on his own...a true rarity!  That is what made an average restaurant meal and a little walk around a murky man made lake that is choking on weeds, reeds and bird feces into a fabulous treat. We had a perfect view of the setting sun as we approached our place.

More errands tomorrow and laundry.  The next morning a friend is coming over, so I will iron in the afternoon.  

Between the short sleep of 3 hours duration last night and the good walk after dinner tonight, following a lot of housework, I am PRAYING and HOPING I will be able to sleep tonight.

Speaking of which, it is time to go and give that a try!

Returning....AGAIN.....To That First Love!

This morning’s sermon was taken from the Apostle Paul’s speech in Acts 26. Pastor Richard gave the most inspiring talk on directing our full passion to being in Christ, seeking and fulfilling our destinies in him. It was excellent; a reminder I need these days as we stand once again on the verge of that precipice which, should we have to once again step off the edge of it in order to walk in fuller faith and trust for God’s daily provision, has been scaring me just a bit. I admit it has been tempting to give in to a bit of resentment when I see our peers retiring comfortably, BUT then I remember the details of the amazing journey the Lord has taken US on through life and how he has cared for our every need. The future, particularly after today’s sermon, is beginning to look like an adventure....Adventures in Providence....my husband calls it. “Adventure” is an exciting word and concept. We have lived it in times past. It is an incredible lifestyle. Here we go again.....wheeeeee!
Provision: spiritual encouragement.

Well, wouldn’t you know it! My husband just now received communication regarding a part time position in ministry that he expressed interest in. He has the position. The specifics will be worked out over the next two weeks as he is slated to begin the first weekend in September. See? An adjustment in my attitude happens and within hours we find out where/how part of our monthly income will be earned over the next year. Fantastic news and its arrival is typical of God’s timing! hahahahaha Yup, I can relax now. God is obviously at work. He will find ways for us to earn the rest of our needed monthly income.
Provision: work/ministry for my husband.

 I think the stress leading up to last week’s visit with my parents, the subsequent lack of sleep and then the stress of seeing their age related struggles, plus more nights with insufficient sleep, all combined to depress me and take my focus off what God is doing here for my husband and myself.

Thank you Pastor Richard for your well spoken, Spirit filled and timely message!

Sweet Fellowship: our hearts were touched to the core yesterday when a phone call came from friends, asking us to come for a spontaneous BBQ, at the instigation of their teenaged son. We love this young man and admire him for the way he deals with challenges in his life. It was an honour that he wanted to see us. His parents are dear friends who have just reconstructed their back yard and we greatly enjoyed seeing the renovations. Papa Friend is the best BBQ chef we have ever known. The chicken was tender, juicy, fantastic and the roasted potatoes are our favourite! What a lovely evening.
Provision: a meal and good friends.

We were invited to a buffet lunch after church today by friends hosting an out of town visitor they knew would share many common outdoor sports interests with my husband. What fun to hear his stories of camping and skiing in the same mountain passes my husband has also enjoyed. What fun!
Provision: a meal, good friends, a new acquaintance.

Another friend walked over to see me this afternoon. We had “tea” and a lovely visit. She brought me a gift: a set of placemats and coasters created by a friend of hers. They are purple, lavender, white and grey, some of my favourite colours. She said, rather embarrassed, she actually felt led to give them to me. I was able to tell her she actually must have been led because just the other day I was looking at my table placemats and despairing over their old, fraying, food stained condition. As badly as they needed replacing, it would be the type of extra expense I wouldn’t want to splurge on until my husband has work.
Provision: a gift of a badly needed replacement item.

God has provided mightily for us this weekend in the area of physical, social and spiritual needs. So much has happened in the past 24 hours. The old days of “living by faith”, all the memories of those times, are flooding back now. They are beginning again. Even though we are senior citizens, the Adventures in Providence are apparently going to be our lifestyle once again. We may be old enough that some in society may write us off, but apparently God is not finished with us yet! How exciting is that, right?

The Break I Didn't Realize I Needed!

Last Sunday after my husband preached one of his more spectacular sermons at my church, we decided to try out the newest Indian buffet restaurant before heading west for a few days away.  I have to say that the new India House on Albert didn't disappoint in its large selection of dishes and the quality of the food and preparation.  We will probably return there sometime, however, we have become very partial to the non-buffet cooking style lunch platters at DarBar and it remains top of our list.  We are also interested to see the renovations both inside and out at the India Palace buffet restaurant, almost directly across the street from India House.  India Palace has had no competition in that area of the city for other Indian restaurants and I hope they can keep up because their buffet food is also very good, particularly for people who prefer very, very mild spicing.  I hope their regulars do not desert them and go running off across the street.

After eating far more lunch than any two people about to spend 5 hours driving in the car need, we drove through patches of rain interspersed with patches of sunshine to our formerly favourite discount hotel in Medicine Hat.  This time we found the soundproofing to be woefully inadequate and many of the other guests incredibly inconsiderate of anyone else staying in the hotel that was not part of their particularly large party.  We didn't sleep well, but did have a nice dinner at Browns' Social House prior to our abortive attempts at sleep.  Their tomato bisque is almost as delicious as Famoso's and the salads we ordered with our soup were delightfully free of gooey dressings.

On Monday morning we left Medicine Hat and groggily wove down the highway farther west to Bragg Creek Alberta.  My husband had arranged to be picked up by some of his hiking buddies there so that they could spend three days together in the mountains, camping and doing day hikes.  We arrived early enough to enjoy a delicious lunch at the Italian bistro there. We had time to linger over our lunch, plus his friends were nearly an hour late arriving, so we had lots of time to wander around in the second hand bookstore and the local hardware store while we waited.  Once the guys connected and I got my husband's camp gear transferred to the other vehicle, I braved the many kilometres of road construction between Bragg Creek and Calgary as I set off for a few days with my parents.

Thanks, I am certain, to the faithful prayers of many friends, my visit with my parents went very well, better than expected.  Dad of course has gone farther down hill since I last saw him around Easter time.  We went out for lunch the day after I arrived and it took him the better part of 2 hours to consume half a chicken breast, two tomato slices and a quarter of his bowl of soup.  That was after it took him nearly ten minutes to push his walker from the parking lot to our restaurant booth, a distance of about 50 feet at most.  He has slowed down in every respect, more than I thought it was possible for a human being to slow down without tipping right over and being completely immobilized.  The poor man is nearly completely blind so he has a terrible time going anywhere unfamiliar, managing to get his food from his plate or bowl to his mouth or moving about in general.  He is so ready to be done with this life as it no longer has anything to offer him, nor he it.  Mom is run completely ragged getting his myriad medications timed out every day, on top of her own meds that have issues with the times allowed for each dose.  Sigh....poor Mom is so tired out from caring for Dad she can hardly function, but she refuses to grant him his wish to go to respite care for a couple of days once or twice a month.  No, she won't explain herself and I can only guess that she has trapped herself with her own overwhelming sense of having to take total responsibility for his every move.  No, I cannot reason with her. NO one can.  Dad stopped trying five decades or more ago.  Once her mind is made up you cannot change it by the introduction of actual facts.  This didn't start when she turned 90, it is how it has always been.  She is her own worst enemy.  Her constant, hovering, dogged devotion to his care is killing her and at this point even Dad can see that and wants to badly to give them both a break for a few days.  She refuses to listen to reason, so there is nothing more I can do. As long as she is there, doing her best to care for him, he does not qualify to go to the nursing home unit in their facility and she will absolutely not allow even the thought of him being moved to a different, more affordable nursing care situation even, let alone allow a coherent conversation about the possibility to take place.  Neither of them is honest with me about their lives or their life together, never have been so it isn't going to change now. They don't want me interfering in their lives now any more than they ever did, so I have, after spending the last 4 days being surrounded by their decisions and attitudes again, decided that I will stop trying to get either of them to listen to reason. They are elderly, ill and exhausted but until something drastic happens that forces one or both of them to face reality and take my offers of help, there is nothing more to be done by me to try to help them. I have always found it ludicrous and silly that I have never been allowed to be part of their lives in any real way, yet had my own life run very tightly by them for more decade than I care to admit.  As much as I often resented their attempts and particularly their successes in directing my own life's traffic, it is even more difficult to see them in the position of having no power left to wield toward anyone, in any way.  That I think bothered me more than any of their physical failings of the past year.  I will continue to pray for them as they continue to have to face life and all the challenges it presents to elderly people with limited mobility and vision. There is a lot more I could initiate for them/ try to assist with on their behalf, but they are still refusing to allow it and with the present privacy and other laws the medical profession has imposed on family members, until they include me in the decisions they need to be making all ready, but aren't, I am seeing my hands are basically tied.  Well, I will pray that God will take care of all the things for them that I cannot between their refusal to let me and the geographical distance between us that contributes as well to my not being able to do what I would like to do to assist them both.

While I was driving my mom around the city to help her grocery shop and run errands that have been building up for weeks, Dad was at home getting time at last to sleep without interruptions and without feeling stressed about Mom being stressed about his medical conditions!  I made lunches in their suite, apart from that one meal out and shared meals with them in their facility dining room.  Now that there is a new kitchen and chef and the meals are being made on site, the quality and variety of the meals has improved tremendously and is more worth the cost they are paying for them.  Mom and Dad are no longer up and ready for company before about 11am, have naps after lunch and are completely done in for the day by 7:30pm, so I had a lot of time to myself.  Those hours alone in the guest suite were what proved to me I have needed badly a break away, since we missed taking our annual June holiday.  I read two books, worked on the art project my son assigned to me, relaxed in front of the old tv in the room that was barely operational, had a complete 5 day break from blogging, emails, phone calls and other forms of electronic communication.  Best of all there were no geese to worry about and I slept well each night....well, once I managed to get a pair of ear plugs that worked well enough to keep out the sounds of one of the resident's late night, incredibly loud recorded music that poured into the courtyard outside my room between 10pm and 2am daily.  I heard Nana Mouskouri, Scottish ballads, Irish jigs....and last night's selection: yodelling songs!!!!  DELIGHTFUL is NOT the word I would use to describe this nightly occurrence.  The first night I honestly believed there was an outdoor concert in the area and assumed it would end at the city's noise bylaw enforceable time of 11pm.  O, would that it had been an outdoor concert that had to abide by noise bylaws, but it was instead the nightly ritual of one of the elderly tenants who is very deaf and puts on the recordings every single evening in order to fall asleep, then doesn't turn it off before nodding out.  The recordings are on automatic replay, so until the dear lady awakens at some point in the early morning hours to turn it off, the rest of us are blessed by it....unfortunately.  My husband arrived back in Calgary last night, after a fabulous hiking and camping trip at Little Elbow Falls, to make a Moroccan tajine to celebrate my parents' 66th wedding anniversary, AND hear the other resident's yodelling songs for himself at 1am!  Result: that is the last time we will be staying in my parents' facility guest suite! Hallelujah!  There are other issues but the loud music each evening, which the staff refuses to deal with, was the last straw for him this time.  

We left for home at 5:30am today.  After being tormented for nearly 4 hours by yodelling songs we gave up on getting any sleep, packed up the car and headed east.  Aaaaah, we do love an early start on long days of driving.  It was so wonderful to be heading out of Calgary just at the early start of the daily rush hour and to be pretty much the only car heading out of the city as a steady, 50km long stream of traffic was heading into the city.  We had a nice drive home once the rain stopped just outside Bassano.  We stopped in Gleichen to clean tree sap from the windshield and wipers.  I must have parked the car under the one tree in the whole parking lot that is still dripping sap! haha  We stopped in Medicine Hat for breakfast.  We stopped for gasoline in Swift Current and we stopped in Moose Jaw for a late lunch at Deja Vu.  We didn't get home until 2:30pm, but didn't feel pushed and exhausted by the long drive.  It pays to stop often and not feel like we have to hurry up.  

There are no plans for tomorrow, other than to pick up a couple of grocery items and go to the bank to pay a couple of bills that arrived in our absence.  Sunday will be church and then my husband will start reviewing his teaching materials for the seminar he is leading next weekend in the Cypress Hills.  He has 5 full days free this coming week to do that and if he wants an early start, tomorrow is gloriously free. 

So, the next few weeks and months will be interesting to see how my parents fare. Dad has an eye appointment with a specialist on Monday to have a laser treatment to drain a lot of the fluid from his eyes and slow down the deterioration of his vision.  It may or may not help much, but he feels it is worth a try.  It won't resture any of his vision loss, but if he could keep a bit in the one eye that has until this past week been his "good" eye, it would help him mentally to feel less helpless. In two weeks he has to begin again a set of spinal injections to release from the constant pain.  When he had them two years ago the difference in his pain level and his abilit to cope with his back problems was profound. Then six months ago he fell down and wrenched his back and unfortunately that negated all the benefits of the first set of injections. So, he is going to try again.  He is so unsteady on his feet that he literally cannot take one step without holding ont the walker.  Snails move faster than he can now and it is painul to watch him trying to navigate himself out of his suite and down the long haul to get to the elevator that takes him to the dining room.  Mom has slowed down tremendously as well and that is the hardest change to see.  She has been the rock through all dad's health issues all his life, but now she is tiring and feeling like she cannot care for him another day.  She and I spent the better part of a whole day together to give her a break.  Since she won't let Dad go to respite care for reasons of her own, I took her on her own respite break...Dad's idea and a darned good one.

I am sitting here watching the black lint from our cotton socks out of the corner of one eye and the newly forming ring around the bathtub that didn't seem to respond well to last week's cleaning attempts.  Guess I know what I will be doing this week in around loads of laundry from this week's trip and photocopying all manner of worksheet pages for my husband's seminar presentation on the weekend.  Sure would be nice to just leave all the mess until after the conference, but of course I cannot do that....YUCK!

Looking forward to a rainless day tomorrow with cool temperatures in the +22C range.  Should be about perfect for me!  Yup, laundry and house cleaning next week are my priority.  I will be thinking about the things I need to do to remain calmer this coming week.  I will also think about my son's relaxing weekend spent partly with friends on Long Island and partly with his girlfriend in the Hamptons.  Imagining the lovely beaches and ocean views he will have will also relax me!

I guess I am glad to be home again, but I will be more excited about it once we get to church on Sunday and I get to see a good, good friend on Monday.  It was hard to come back today and face that miserably boring drive between Calgary and Regina, instead of driving west out of the city and heading for Vancouver and the wonderful ocean! 

It is nearly midnight and I am so tired I am not even going to proof this before publishing it.  As you can tell from previous posts, my best proofing still misses some pretty blatant errors and that is when I am wide awake, healthy and functional...unlike right now. This too shall pass.     

 

Amazing Rain

Our predicted "scattered showers" last night and overnight turned into a sky opening downpour of mega proportions by about 7pm!  The rain was hitting the road outside so hard that the drops were bouncing back up several feet into the air.  What an incredible sight.  Happily, we had only a bit of water coming into the basement as a result of the storm.  The lightning and thunder were crackling and rolling all around us, but despite some higher winds, I don't think we sustained any real damage here in the city.  Finally the rain stopped around 7am today.  The roads are dry again, apart from a few little trickles of water running along the curbs.  The giant puddles on the street in front of our place have disappeared at last and the storm drains have finally cleared what remained of the water after the rain stopped coming down. The Garth Brooks concert here last night was delayed by more than 2 hours while people sought shelter to wait it out.  The usual question: why was our fancy schmancy new sports and concert venue built as only an outdoor venue with no covering dome???!!  We can be grateful we are not corn farmers from southern Alberta. The other night a huge hail storm wiped out pretty much the entire corn crop in the area...devastating for the farmers and customers alike!

Our teen geese were quite confused when the lightning struck so close and so often and the thunder became deafening, BUT they finally as a group tried out their wings in terms of flying higher into the air than I have seen this particular group fly before.  They were flying helter skelter all over the place and it took awhile for them to get into some semblance of order to fly back over to the lake together.  One family still has its late born babies at the early teenaged stage. The young ones still have downy feathers on their breasts that have not yet moulted to make room for the flying feathers.  They are still crossing the street on foot as a family unit.  They were crossing in the dark last night as the clouds were so heavy and black that the street lights came on early. Fortunately the lead cars travelling in each direction saw them in time to stop until the geese had crossed safely.  I don't know where any of our regulars have gone today.  Other than the constantly, mournfully honking Uncle Harry who arrived as usual early this morning, I have seen no geese at all.  I am sure they will be back by dinner tonight, as per usual, but for now I am enjoying a so far goose free day!!!  What a treat!!!

My husband was up early this morning to shop for groceries for himself before the store became too crowded with Saturday shoppers.  He loves going then, but now he is having an afternoon nap! hahaha  He has his sermon all ready for tomorrow morning and will only need to go over it a few times this evening.

I spent the morning cooking chicken and doing emails. This afternoon I will iron the laundry I did yesterday.  I like ironing.  Dishes...meh.  Vaccuming....meh.  Dusting...meh.  But ironing is fun!  I think it is because not only can I see immediate results from my labour, but also the results last for awhile until the clothes are sufficiently worn to the point of needing to be washed again.  The results from other chores around the house seem to last no more than a few hours or even minutes!

Our son SKYPE'd with us this morning.  It has been a few weeks since our last session online.  He looks wonderful! (yes, I am biased, no, I don't care)  His 3 days at the beach in Vancouver last weekend gave him a beautiful tan. He hasn't had a proper tan since he moved to New York 3 years ago!!  He has lost a lot of weight from the lack of alcohol and from all the cycling he has been doing to his various jobs each week: averaging 80 - 100 miles per week. He is eating properly and using many natural products to successfully treat his dust related skin condition.  He is going grey early, at the temples...exactly where he was hoping the grey would start as he liked that look in my family.  He inherited the trait and is quite happy about it.  He has paid the first installment for renewing his US visa and since he has a small art show coming up there in the new year, it should stand him in good stead for the renewal.  We are delighted for him.  It seems too early for him to have to return to Canada, just as his contacts are starting to pay off and he finally has time to concentrate on his art after 3 years of smartening up his life.  It was a very positive communication, but we realized how much we all miss each other.  So, we are praying for enough money to come along between the three of us to either get us to NYC again or to get him here sometime before the end of this year.  The way we are going to have to cobble together income from various sources starting next month, our lives are going to become very interesting indeed and who knows?  We could be seeing our son sooner than we think! Our God is an awesome God!! He is also a generous God and no matter what kind of regular income we have he seems to make use of it to get us where we need to go, even if it doesn't look possible.  I cannot tell you how many times either ourselves or our equally broke son have been able to travel and do amazing things that by rights should not have been affordable.  It is amazing!  None of us have ever missed out on anything we knew we truly needed/wanted to do for travels!  Our son has parttime work right now but since he did so well with his training at the Bove gallery, it appears he will get another parttime position with them in September when the gallery reopens after its annual summer closure for machinery maintenance etc.   By the time he is done there, learning all about preparing the metal pieces for painting and being turned into huge sculptures, he should be able to start his own side business repainting cars!  

Had a nice chat with my parents today, but Dad suddenly went silent when he found out our son is trying to stay in the USA.  The poor man cannot accept his grandson's independence and the freedom we always allowed him to have to choose his own path.  It has always irritated him.  I remember the silences when I announced I was getting married and not living my life at home with my parents.  That was good for about 2 solid weeks or more of silence. hahaha  However, I hope the two of them do get to see each other again soon.   It would perk Dad up a lot.

Well....it must be time to go and do that ironing I was chatting about so blithely several paragraphs ago.  Yup...mid afternoon...time to get a move on!

If I Hear "O Well, What Can You Do" or "It Is What It Is" One More Time I Am Going To Lose It!

Over the past week I have heard both those expressions multiple times, usually in relationship to the goose problem in our complex or about some issue that could easily be solved by a simple application of mental or physical energy that the expressor of the above sentiments is simply unwilling to exercise.  Aaaargh!!

What does "it is what it is" even mean???  

I suspect my impatience stems from a combination of the frustration of my not being able to get any of the other tenants here on board with working together to free up our lawns of geese that leave too much poo on the ground for the other tenants' kids to play outside safely and the stress of knowing how difficult my next trip to Calgary is going to be what with my parents being in their present physical and emotional conditions.  That stress has hit me early and very hard for some reason.  We need to see them before the snow flies once again, so......

Yesterday I was aware of my impatience with our sweet but completely inept young server at the restaurant where I had coffee and dessert with a couple of new friends.  There were 3 of us, 3 sets of cutlery and napkins but only 2 coffee cups. When she brought the 2 pots of coffee for us we had to ask her twice for another cup.  There was no cream on the table and we waited an age after asking for some.  We asked for separate bills and she brought a bill set up for only one total payment so we had to straighten it out at the till.  She asked my one friend if she would like to take home the (mostly) uneaten portion of her meal and when my friend said she would, off the plate of food went back to the kitchen....never to return.  It had been thrown away. Sigh.... Hopefully my friend will get a free meal in future as she had to pay for the entire meal, even though she didn't get to have it!   There was not a flicker of emotion on the server's face when she realized what she had done with my friend's leftovers and no offer of giving her that meal for free or making some other sort of compensation. My friend had to ask and then, still with no flicker of emotion, the server made the arrangement for a freebie at a later date.  Nothing was getting through to this young woman.  Is she like this all the time at work or was yesterday a particularly difficult day for her for some unknown reason?  I wanted to feel a great deal of compassion for someone so dibbled on the job, but really all I felt was PO'd.  I admit it. My compassion button was broken all day yesterday I am afraid.

Well, today is much better. The pains in my ankle have subsided greatly this morning and I am managing all the stairs during the laundry work today.  The swelling has gone way down since yesterday and I can walk with almost no limp. YAY!

Got my notice from Sask Health yesterday that it is time for another cervical cancer test, so I made the appointment for a couple of weeks from now.  I don't want to be waiting for results while we are away in the Cypress Hills for the conference my husband is leading soon.  I am delighted that Sask Health is so on top of sending out notices to everyone when it is time for cervical tests, mammograms and bowel cancer tests.  I hope that is a service they are able to maintain for a long time.  I find it most helpful.

My favourite blogger has just been diagnosed with breast cancer.  I SO appreciate her candor about how freaked out and terrified she is about her upcoming lumpectomy.  She is not afraid to be completely honest, swear like a trouper from the fear and then after she has calmed down, try to find something positive about how she is going to attempt to face the situation. She has good family support from her grown kids, but I can only imagine what she is going through with this shocking diagnosis. She was completely unprepared to hear....mind you, who is prepared for that kind of news, even if there is all ready a suspcion that it is coming??!  I pray she can meet this frightening challenge with as much good grace as she can muster and that God will give her great comfort in the coming months.  Please send up a prayer for J.  Thanks so much.

Merv is having his third surgery in as many months. He should be in the OR right about now.  His original cancer is not evident since it was removed, but there are scar tissue issues that he has had to have surgery for twice now....and in the middle of all the cancer problems he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes! Dear Lord!!

Kat continues her fight.  She has been in hospital twice now for a full day of magnesium treatments as her body's magnesium has been SO low as to be dangerous for her.  It seems to be a side effect of the chemo.  Next week she gets biopsy results from the recent draining of the seroma near her initial surgery site, as well as her next chemo treatment.  She admits it is only her faith in Jesus that has kept her from giving up completely and just wanting to die and get it over with.  Her body has been brutalized by ongoing surgeries and treatments and there are so many other terrible stresses in her life. Her genuinely positive attitude is amazing.
 
It is time to scrub down all the cupboards in the kitchen, inside and out. I am noticing that the kitchen appliances are all in need of a major wash down and shining up as well.  In the summer I don't pay a lot of attention to those sorts of housekeeping details. There are places to go, people to meet and other things to do than intense housework during our all too brief summer season.  However....after a good look around the kitchen this morning I realize it is time to get going on the cupboards and appliances!  Yikes!

Doing laundry today. Time to go to the basement and change the loads over.  Have a great day and weekend everyone. I am looking forward to Sunday when my husband preaches at my church for the first time.  Things are moving along with the possible part time position he is hoping to get in September.  Although it is not even half time and the pay therefore insufficient, it just seems like the right place to try to be.  We shall see.....