No Coat.....Aaaaah, The Freedom.....

 Took my first COATLESS walk of the spring season today....just a few blocks away to the post office, but how wonderful to feel so light and airy as I marched along in the +19C heat. Even the breeze was nice and warm!  Oh joy!!  Thank the Lord for SPRING!

“Walkin’ Around This Dirty Old Town....”

 Yup, walkin’ is what I did today and it was grand! I went for a walk with a friend right after lunch, then a much longer walk later in the afternoon to pick up our car from the dealership after getting the seasonal tire change done. Despite the day being rather overcast and chilly, I enjoyed every minute out there! It is nearly a full hour to walk at a quick pace to the dealership, maybe not that long for many people, but considering the amount of hardware in my hip and ankle, I am grateful to be able to walk comfortably for that long so soon after my annual winter “hibernation”! 

My husband had the same walk in the opposite direction when he dropped the car off at the dealership this morning, a good warmup for doing a small pruning job for friends of friends tomorrow! 

Some friends in Florida celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary this week with COVID19 vaccinations for the whole family! Aaaah, what a time we are living in! 

Received some fantastic news from Nan today about some improvements in Cee’s health. Special IV treatments are greatly reducing the hours of immobilizing neuropathy pain and he has had only a few attacks recently, each lasting only about 15-30 minutes instead of over ten hours at a stretch. Thank you again faithful prayer warriors! 

My husband and I had a delightful visit with our son tonight on Zoom. I am still getting used to seeing him with a beard, but he looks wonderful and is happy. He has a phone consult with his doctor tomorrow, has had his eyes checked by an ophthalmologist and is getting ready to go to the dentist. The reality of middle aged health issues is upon him and I am so happy he is taking it all seriously. He is in full artist brain mode and will be for the next month until his show opens on June 5th, hahaha. That makes it all the more impressive that he is actually remembering....mostly....to take care of his health. 

I completed my Marathon of Ironing this morning. Only two morning this spring to get the job done. Last spring it took four! 

So, this burst of energy all week has been wonderful, but tomorrow it is a day to relax and gear up for the next set of tasks! Veterinary shows on tv....perhaps an all day marathon of them?

Winter Weighs Me Down

 Okay, so it isn't actually "winter" that weighs me down, it is winter CLOTHES that weigh me down....literally...physically weigh me down.  The heavy sweaters, thick cotton turtlenecks, heavy jeans and knit cotton pants, along with thick socks, long sleeved nightgowns, heavy snowboots, winter parkas and knee length wool dress coats combine over the 5 to 7 months of winter each year to make my body feel like it is under pressure from morning to night.  My shoulders, thighs, knees, even my feet feel like they are wrapped up in mummies' rags all winter long.  I am starting to wonder if the reason I have accomplished so much in the past couple of days is because I have started switching out the winter wear for lighter, less confining items of clothing.

Today I decided to wear my baby blue, short sleeved, round necked, brushed cotton summer house robe for the first time since early last autumn.  I put on my summer house sandals and didn't even wear socks.  I felt free and energetic even though it was cold outside and there were huge flakes of fluffy snow coming down for part of the morning.  I had breakfast and headed right into housework: a load of dishes put through the dishwasher and put away, six loads of laundry completed and put away in the closets and cupboards, all the freshly filled water jugs hauled out of the car and stored in the basement, nearly half of my Marathon of Ironing completed, all bedding stripped from the bed and the mattress covers and winter duvets cleaned and put away, the spring covers and sheets put on the bed looking so fresh and spring-like....what a wonderful day filled with normal energy  and activities like I haven't felt or accomplished on a daily basis since the winter weather arrived at the end of last October!

I also discovered this afternoon that my usual winter weight gain of 8 pounds is only 5 pounds this time around, so I should be able to lose that pretty quickly if I keep moving most days like I did today!

It was a MARVELLOUS day today!!  Now it is 10:15pm and I am ready to go and read myself to sleep. Thank you Lord for days like this one after a stodgy winter, made stodgier by being trapped inside at home so much due to the pandemic. 

Happy Memory #6

 From a letter written in Tokyo shortly after our arrival in the autumn of 2000:

“Craving North American food after only two weeks in Tokyo, we decided to eat dinner at our neighbourhood Denny’s Family Restaurant. 

Just like home: same signage, same Logo, same green and yellow colour theme. 

Not like home: the food items on the menu.....”

To see the sort of menu items we were confronted with, go to www.dennys.jp

Click on the language bar in the top right hand corner and the names of each item will convert to English, although plate descriptions remain in Japanese. In case you are wondering, the mound of pale greenery on many of the photographed plates is either shredded cabbage, shredded diakon radish, or a combination of the two.

Have fun looking at the extensive menu and remember that the photos of each item are, in reality, representative of a portion/serving size half or less of what would be served here in Canada. The prices are in yen, so 100 yen would be roughly equivalent to one US dollar. 

In The Name Of Friendship!

 Today just got better and better as it went along!  At 11:30am I got a call from a dear friend who is very lonely during this pandemic and who tries to work in a few deck visits once in awhile on nice days to assuage that loneliness.  Please, please could I come over to look after her while her husband was away for the afternoon? Since she is somewhat incapacitated and it isn't safe for her to be at home alone for too many hours in a row, I agreed to head over there after my lunch.

 

I had a glorious walk over to her house...the route is lined with mature trees and the sidewalk is in pretty good shape most of the way.  My new walking shoes got their best "break in" work out yet and they performed wonderfully well.

 

We sat on her front porch out of the wind and spent the next three and a half hours chatting and watching the traffic and people and animals using the street.  We met some new neighbours whose dog had just run away, (fortunately it returned home an hour later), we saw some more of the adorable rabbits that haunt her neighbourhood and, thrill of thrills, a BURROWING OWL flew right past our heads and into the nearest tree.  Oh, so incredibly tiny and adorable....and NOT A GOOSE!!!!  I was thrilled to see it.  I rarely get to see them and what this one was doing in the residential neighbourhood I am not sure, but it was amazing. WOW!!  What a treat for both of us.

 

After our extended visit I walked back home, back through the lovely trees, thinking about all the things my friend and I discussed this afternoon....a wide range of topics. She is the kind of person who never runs out of interesting conversation starters, which is wonderful because I am kind of a dud at this point for thinking of interesting changes of topic: pandemic fatigue I suspect, too much time alone for too extended of a period of time.

 

I hauled out the spring and summer clothing tubs after I got home.  While I talked to my mom this evening I stood in the bedroom packing up winter garments and getting the change of wardrobe onto hangers so I can start the ironing tomorrow...three days worth if memory serves me from last year at this time.  I have WAY too many items of clothing, BUT I already put four items into the thrift store bag because I know I will not wear them any more.  Like most of my now several years old items of clothing, they look new and someone will enjoy wearing them.  As this season goes along I will have to be more ruthless about passing on some of the items I know in my heart I just don't want to admit I don't want to wear any more.  What inspires me to give those things to the thrift shop, regardless of what kind of convoluted reasoning I have been using to hang onto them despite knowing I won't wear them again, is knowing that other people WILL wear them and enjoy doing so.

 

 I had my final meal of Indian food tonight from our latest take out order.  My husband is looking forward to finishing up the rest of it for his lunch tomorrow.  'Bye bye Indian food....until the next take out order.

 

My husband has taken on a small pruning job for friends of friends. He will do that later this week. I am so proud of him because he looked at two other jobs today and had the good sense to say "no" to one of them and to say "not until June" for the other as that is a more appropriate time for him.  For once he hasn't taken on more than he can handle and I wasn't even  there to prompt his answers to the possible customers. He was able to be sensible all by himself, tee hee.

 

In a couple of days we are off to the Honda dealership to have the studded tires removed from our car and the summer tires put on.  My husband has finally secured "permission" from me to use up his bright yellow canoe paint to repaint the rusty looking rims.  hahaha Really, who cares,right?  Between losing two hubcaps on various highway trips and not being able to locate them and having two of them stolen, on top of all the other problems we have had with hubcaps on other vehicles, we have stopped worrying about buying any more of the darned things!  Phooey on them.  You can have your sparkly, flashy silver hubcaps and I will have my bright yellow water proof painted rims! hahahaha Should be a real hoot!

So, a grand day couple of days all around. Thank you Lord, I needed those two positive days.  I feel rejuvenated and hope that lasts for awhile.

So Happy To Be Feeling Well and Busy Once Again!

 I don't know if it is the result of the onset of spring, but I have been feeling very well the past couple of days.  I admit I have still been having residual shingles symptoms since the main symptoms disappeared toward the end of January, but I realized today that every last niggling issue with that seems to have cleared up completely...hopefully I haven't spoken (written?) too quickly!

 

The sun is shining today, it is going to be a warm day if we reach our forecast high temperature of +19C, (before plunging back into snow flurries and +11C tomorrow just for the day), by Friday we are to be at +23C, SO my big "chore" for today is bringing up my tubs of spring and summer clothes and starting on my spring "Gala of Ironing"!  I need my lighter nightgowns and sweaters now even on the cooler days.  I also need to make an appointment to have the studded tires taken off the car before I have worn them down to useless nubs on the dry pavement and ruin them for next winter's use.

 

Yesterday my husband and I got up early to do a marathon of shopping for little household items we have been putting off getting due to a lack of desire to be in any public places now that the Rise of the Variants has arrived in our fair city.  However, when we discovered a couple of days ago that the connection button to hang up our phone was damaged after over 12 years of use, we had to get a new house phone right away.  We needed computer paper, the last of our elderly kitchen spatulas broke in half on the weekend, my kitchen garbage can looks and smells like it fell out of a garbage can itself, my mom needed some pharmacy and office supplies rather badly, we were out of R/O water and, Lord forbid, fresh pitas, my husband needed a particular and difficult to find colour of thread for mending his favourite house sweater, he needed a bicycle light and some lamp fixture repair items, some milk and tofu, etc. etc. etc.  We arranged our route as well as we could to coincide with the opening hour of as many of the places we were going as we could.  That worked out incredibly well.  We drove all over the city and were in and out of 11 stores and a bank in just over 90 minutes!  We were able to find all but 3 of the items we needed to purchase, so that was amazing to us as we gazed at the giant gaps on many of the shelves in various stores in the city.  We can live awhile longer without those 3 items. Unfortunately one of them is my kitchen garbage can, so out comes the bleach once again....sigh.... Timing our arrival with the opening of each store worked very well. Each store was practically empty and it took us only a few minutes in each place to complete our business.

We could tell we are not used to this kind of marathon shopping any more.  Yes, there was a tad of added stress due to having to mask, sanitize and distance, but we are used to that now, so weren't aware of the extra strain involved.  By 8pm last evening, these two oldsters were completely worn out and ready for sleep!!  For the first time in probably years...well, a few months....we both had our bedside lights out before 10pm. I slept for nearly 7 hours...putting me awake just before 5pm, but that is okay.  I got some paperwork done until it was time to get up for breakfast after discovering that the dental office had accidentally sent in my husband's latest claim to his insurance company twice.  Hopefully my call to their office has solved the issue.

 

That is the happiest news around here!  My husband has his permanent crown and he is very, very happy and comfortable with it.  It looks good, fits properly and he is very glad the dentist returned the first one that wasn't as well crafted.  Hopefully that will be the end of the required dental work in our household until our next cleanings in July.

 

As expected our son did experience a second, worse, reaction to his second Modera vaccination on the weekend: high fever for 24 hours and nighttime hallucinations, but 36 hours after the injection he was recovering and preparing a lamb ragu for dinner.  hahaha It takes a lot to keep that man out of the kitchen. He LOVES to cook!!  The new salt and fat free diet he is on has not discouraged him.  It has challenged him to find all manner of new recipes to try.  His other good news is that his bilirubin test results show up as "within standard range", but he does have one question to ask the doctor about one of the numbers before he can completely relax about it.  He is happily ensconced in the summer house on Long Island for another couple of days before returning to work.  Hopefully he feels well enough for a walk on the beach, or a wrap up in a blanket to sit on a beach chair for a couple of hours at some point.

 

Mom is quite happy. She has made three friends among the other widows that she sits with the couple of times per week she goes down to the dining room for lunch. I notice she has begun averaging three times a week now instead of once or twice and her mood has lightened considerably now that she has some friends to enjoy.  Thank you Lord for this wonderful turn of events for my lonely mom.

 

We are enjoying our new telephones.  My husband found a matching pair this time that operate from the same base but each have their own chargers, so I can keep the spare in the bedroom.  Prior to yesterday I was having to remember to charge the phone after my call with mom every evening so I could keep it off the kitchen charger, bedside overnight in case of any family health emergency calls coming in while we are sleeping.  What a stress off not to have to concern myself with that now every day of the week. This is a wonderful treat, small issue that it would seem to be.

 

Speaking of treats, we are still enjoying our takeout food from DarBar.  We have each had 3 full meals out of the deal and should be able to get 2 more each.  What a great deal!  By the time we are done I will feel more like cooking again....I assume....I hope....sigh....I am hoping that now that the last of the shingles symptoms seem to have ceased, (nearly 11 months later), I will want to be more creative with my cooking once again. I was just getting started on that process when illness struck, my dad died, my mom had her heart attack etc. etc. etc.  So glad a few of the family health issues are at least temporarily under control.

 

Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out!!   (hahaha) 

My dear husband did some small pruning jobs for a couple of friends last summer. Sigh....now of course the word is out that he is capable of such things, so yesterday he received not only a call from one of those people to come over this afternoon and spec out another bit of work for her, but the neighbours of the other friends he worked for have now arranged for him to come to their place this afternoon to look at the possibility of topping their apple trees.  Aaaaaargh!!!  We are not in desperate financial need just at the moment, my husband is old and out of shape and he needs to get tweaking his next course to be taught in about three weeks' time......NO MORE PRUNING AND YARDWORK JOBS, PLEASE DEAR!!  However, he just cannot say "no" to people who want his help with things.  Sigh....There are certain pitfalls to being a "jack of all trades", minister type of person......

 

 

        

 

Not A Lost Sheep Today

 A lost sheep....that is how I so often feel on Sundays.  I drag myself out of bed and force my breakfast down, maybe get dressed for my church's services, unless I don't have the energy and leave my camera disconnected on Zoom so I can stay in my pj's.  Then lunch and then......if my husband has a church service Sunday evening, as he does three Sunday evenings out of four each month, I don't feel relaxed enough to accomplish much around this house and neither does he.  We laze around, feeling crabby and out of sorts until the 7pm evening prayer service. Afterward we are suddently ravenous after eating barely a snack at dinner time, giddy as a couple of school girls once the weekly ministry commitments are over, we stay up too late and feel dreadful on Mondays for not having slept well.  Then we cram in as many  "do it together" things as we can for the following three days before it is time for my husband to prepare and record another sermon and get ready for the next Sunday evening's service.  Although he is not yet ready to be retired, I surely am ready for him to be. 

I have many a pipe dream about being able to downsize so substantially that we can move into a tiny one bedroom apt. and save enough on rent and utilities to be free to take a few trips around the country once the pandemic comes to an end.  My pipe dream is just that, I know it.  My dear husband will never want to downsize that drastically.  He will always need a basement or a storage unit and that will require more outlay of cash each month that I am hoping for.  Although, you never know.  When the time comes next year for us to move out of this place he just may surprise me!

Today has been an absolutely wonderful Sunday for me!!  Hallelujah!!  I was up in time to go to the Sunday school service at my church....camera off as I wasn't up in THAT much time....then I shut off my Zoom for awhile.  I spent the next hour and more cleaning the downstairs of our suite, tuning into my morning church service just in time for the sermon and the prayers....the two most meaningful parts of the service for me personally.  After lunch I completed the downstairs cleaning, got the dishwasher loaded and cycled through, the hand washing dishes done and put away, the garbage pails emptied and all those bags taken out to the bin.  All done by 2:15pm!  What a great day!!

This is my husband's regularly scheduled Sunday off, so he is happily sitting in front of his computer answering "emails of importance", (hint: they all have something to do with theology, hahaha....big surprise, eh), and planning for an afternoon nap.  

He is happy and fulfilled. I am happy and fulfilled.  I need to stop being so mentally lazy and figure out how to make every Sunday this fulfilling!!

Nearly 4PM.....Isn't It Time For Dinner???

 I ate breakfast earlier than usual this morning...by a whole hour. That meant I could eat my lunch at noon, like a regular person, instead of waiting until 1pm because of being too lazy to get up at a decent time of the morning.  Unfortunately I didn't eat a huge lunch and now it is only 3:45pm and I am ravenous!  I can't eat a snack and wait until 6p.m.to eat because that will be in the middle of my nightly phone call with Mom and I don't want to cut that short due to a growling tummy!  I just may have to eat a very early dinner tonight!

 After lunch today my husband and I drove around to the area community library boxes so I could contribute two large bags of books I have read since my last trip around to the boxes.  It felt good to put some books back into the system that came from other boxes originally. Nice for the neighbourhood readers to find something new to read.

I did get the bathroom scrubbed down yesterday but then other things impeded my housework progress, so after the book run today I cleaned the upstairs of the suite. Tomorrow afteroon I will do the downstairs and then it will be awhile before I have to do it all again.  Aaaaah, that is why I am hungry!  I have been doing a normal amount of work today for a change~aaaahhhhh sooooo.....!

I don't think my husband really wanted to accompany me on the library boxes run because he is working on another teaching course, "Who is Jesus", but he came anyway.  He is SO GLAD he did!  On our way home we saw some friends walking down the sidewalk so we stopped to talk to them.  They had just been to their neighbourhood ice cream parlor so had quite an array of treats between the three of them.  After we left them I noticed my husband's eyes gleaming their "I WANT ICED CREAM!!" gleam and I knew we were on our way to the Milky Way! hahaha Yup!  He enjoyed his orange cream iced cream cone very much indeed. And no, I wasn't jealous of his treat because I am one of those weird people who doesn't like iced cream.

The sun is shining brightly, but it is still quite chilly outside.  We have another three or four days of below average temperatures, but then it will start to warm up, or so it is foretold.  Snow showers and some rain showers in the forecast. We definitely need to have the studded tires replaced with all seasons very soon, hopefully this coming week......sometime......   

Happy Memory #5

 

 

Today I have a couple of happy  memories to share in regard to my husband's various ministry positions.  In the photo above he is surrounded by boxes of files and books and office supplies as he prepares to leave his last diocesan office position as Executive Archdeacon.  There were so many good things about the position, but there were also a lot of odd, sometimes downright weird situations that went on, situations that he was called on to solve that were never meant to be a part of his job description....in fact the Bishop figured out that for most of my husband's tenure there he was spending upward of 75%  of his time having to solve other employees' job issues.  The happiest memory is of his farewell party and the night he returned home from his final day in the office for what turned out to be 9 months of recovery from the stress.  Lately we have been able to talk mostly about the great times in that position and the good things that he was able to accomplish for the diocese.  Positive memories abound now that the sad and stressful ones have been dealt with.

 

I am remembering fondly a large group of people from a church where he had been on staff, as he was at several churches over the years, as a maintenance/renovation contractor and who assumed that once he was ordained he would be coming to them as their lead pastor.  He was wise enough to know that after being a trades employee, too many in any congregation would not readily accept his change of position and so he didn't apply for the position.  We were visiting that church one Sunday while they were still in their search process and one of the couples we were sitting with asked us, quite sincerely, when my husband would be starting his new position as their minister.  They were not on the hiring committee and so would have had no way of knowing at that point who had applied and who was being vetted by the search committee. When he admitted he hadn't even applied for the position, they were shocked....so shocked in fact that before he could explain his reasons to them, they pushed their chairs away from the table, almost violently, stood up and said, "We cannot cope with this information right now. We need to go home!" They collected their children and headed out the door!  After that the word spread quickly that my husband was not in the running to be their minister and we had phone calls and emails all week from people expressing their shock and disappointment.  My husband was correct though.  Despite a large following of friends in that congregation, the dynamic of the relationships would have been too different had he become their minister.  My husband felt badly letting these dear friend down, but he felt vindicated when he saw how well they bonded with their new minister a few months later.  Years later, they are still doing very well under that minister's leadership and it was definitely the right hire for them.

 It was so lovely to see how many people really believed they wanted my husband as their church leader.  Most of them are people we are still very close to as friends. They have been supportive through good and bad, through our many moves since those days that have taken us farther and farther away from them.  

I have been remembering how many ministry positions my husband has been accepted for over the years, how upset various search committees have been when he has not been available any more by the time they  have decided to hire him.  My husband is an unassuming man, not really noticeable in a crowd, quiet and not at all pushy about his own abilities and ministry gifts, hardly a "fashion plate" pastor by any stretch of the imagination, kind of a "down home" type, yet he has been offered SO MANY ministry positions in his life, at least half of which were from organizations and churches who reached out to him before their positions were even publicly posted.  God has blessed him with wonderful friends, surrounded him by people who recognize his gifts and are grateful for the way he uses them.  Our ministry lives have been low key for the most part, happening in out of the way towns and small cities, but my husband has been incredibly blessed by people who have been helped by his ministry and have not been afraid to let him know how he has helped them.  I am so proud of my husband.  He weeps over the dying, over those he has had to discipline in various ministry situations, over anyone who is hurting.  He is genuinely excited for colleagues who have the "flashier", more publicly well known ministry positions, he has no regrets over getting started in ordained ministry so late in his life.  He is blessed with peace about who he is.

God is good! 

Slightly More Encouraging Family News Today!

 This morning has been encouraging!  I was about to head into the shower at 8:45am and my husband was still asleep, when the phone rang.  I was delighted to see that the call was from my husband's sister and not one of the early morning scam calls we have been dealing with lately.

I woke my dear husband out of a sound sleep, but he was quite happy since it was to talk to his sister. hahahaha  He also remembered it is his weekend off work and he has no sermon to record today, so PARTY TIME!! hahaha

Today the news from his sister was encouraging.  We found out that the reason we have not heard from her for the past nearly two weeks is because after she got home from her hospital stay for pneumonia, she developed a secondary infection at home, so has been on antibiotics again and feeling absolutely miserable.  A couple of days ago she reached the end of her antibiotic treatment, so is feeling much better. She has also begun weaning off the steroids for the brain tumours now that they are gone. So, the hyper conversation and disorganized activity is coming to an end.  She sounded the most like herself that we have heard her sound in months.

She will have a virtual appointment with her oncologist this coming week.  The cancer institute in her city has had an outbreak of Covid, so treatments and cancer surgeries are on hold for the moment. For her, since there is no cure for her cancer, that is less discouraging than for patients whose lives could end because of the delays.  She is working at building a very positive attitude about her situation and without the hindrance of other drugs in her system she is having success with it.  We are so very proud of her.

My husband is up and bounding around the house with joy now that he has had this good news.  I am as happy for him as I am for his sister. Her condition has been weighing heavily on his mind and heart.  All of us declared this morning how grateful we are for Zoom, so that even though we can't go to her province to see her, we can see her online.  Thankful for working telephones and for computer programmes that make geographical separations somewhat easier to bear.

Trying To Motivate Myself!

 I have progressed slowly this week from considering the possibility of cleaning the suite, to considering seriously where I should begin, to actually cleaning the bathroom properly this morning....slowly but surely I am convincing myself to continue living as normally as possible even though social commitments within peoples' homes are still not allowed.  It feels good to get started and if I didn't have to take my husband to his dental appointment this afternoon I would definitely get moving on Phase 2....right? I would...wouldn't I?  

 

(I suspect that the expression "not bloody likely" would be applicable in this case!)

I also washed a load of clothes this morning, answered several emails and planned out an interesting route for a walk with a friend next Thursday afternoon as, hopefully, the outdoor temperature will be more springlike by then.

Yesterday afternoon I had a wonderful conversation with an out of town friend who is recovering from surgery and doing much better than I expected she would be doing at this point. I am very proud of you and you know who you are!

The previous evening Kat brought her fold up chair over to my front sidewalk, I hauled out an old chair of mine and we sat chatting in our "beach chairs" and parkas, masks on, appropriately distanced, as we watched the sun go down behind the parliament buildings.  We were both exhausted before we even got together. As the sun sagged into the horizon, so did our eyelids and we finally had to face the fact that it was time to fold up our chairs and go our separate ways.  It was a very relaxed, pleasant social time.

Our son will receive his second dose of Moderna on Sunday morning. Immediately afterward he will be heading out to Long Island with his girlfriend to do his recovery from a likely reaction to the injection.  He did have a bit of a reaction to the first dose, so if the second one is going to be worse, as predicted, he will be able to relax and recover better if he is away from work and the bustle of NYC.  I hope he will be able to drag a chair out to the beach, wrap up in a blanket and just sit watching the ocean.

I had my first overseas obscene phone call this morning so that livened things up around here! A scam call came in and without checking the call display I answered the phone.  The fellow on the other end didn't like my response to his scam offer so he said something very obscene.  hahahahaha  I laughed so hard, that he hung up on me.  I doubt our phone number will remain on his call list now. hahahaha  (Hey, I am in the midst of a pandemic lockdown....I get my fun where I can! hahahahaha)

Time to go and make a chicken sandwich for lunch on my favourite seed bread.  My husband has left me a bowl of his amazing lentil soup to have as well.  Yippee, a meal I am actually looking forward to. There is so much stress in our home right now that my usually overactive appetite has not been much of a problem lately....both a good and not so good thing I suppose.

Happy Memory #4

After a lifetime of experiences with pot luck dinners at churches from many denominations, I am remembering not only some of the most wonderful home made food, but also the universality of some of the reactions by members of the church womens' groups who usually sponsor said potlucks.  What a hoot!!  Been there? Done that? Then you understand......hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!! (Thank you Diocese of Algoma for posting this hilarious meme today.)

 

Please, Please Do Your Research Properly!!

 As I listen to the rhetoric from anti-vaxxers, false claims of scientific bases for various ideas and conspiracy theories about all manner of issues, this quote certainly sums up my own feelings about researching available data:

 

"Please stop saying you "researched it"! 

You didn't research anything and it's highly probable that you don't even know how to do so.

Did you compile a literature review and write abstracts on each article? Or better yet, did you collect a random sample of sources and perform independent probability statistics on the reported results? No?

Did you at least take each article, one by one and look into the source (that would be the author, publisher and funder), then critique the writing for logical fallacies, cognitive distortions and plain inaccuracies?

Did you ask yourself why this source might publish these particular results? Did you follow the trail of references and apply the same source of scrutiny to them?

No? Then you didn't 'bleep'-ing research anything. You read  or watched a video, most likely with little to no objectivity.  You came across something in your algorithm manipulated feed, something that jived with your implicit biases and served your confirmation bias, and subconsciously applied your emotional filters and called it proof.

Scary.

--attributed to Linda Gamble Spadaro, but I haven't researched it, just liked the quote and I admit to removing the F-bomb in the last paragraph because I detest that word. Whoever said this and however it was expressed, I embrace the overall idea expressed here.

 

Happy Memory #3

 My son has always had a great affinity for animals of all kinds.  When he was five we were at a family reunion on a farm and he wandered off into a field near the farm house, into the midst of the grazing sheep.  These sheep were not used to human contact apart from their annual shearing, but this one seemed to think my son was quite wonderful.  hahaha

Happy Memory #2

 

My husband took some of his seminary courses in 2005 at the Asian College of Cultural Studies in Secunderabad, sister city to Hyderabad, in the province of Andhra Pradesh, India.

I remember his shock at being accepted as the first student from his seminary to be chosen to try the cross seminary course exchange programme, the thrill of waving him off at the airport and the hours and hours of sharing his joyful experiences there when he got home.  I remember he found a poisonous snake in his wash pail one morning. I remember he loved his tour of the old Golconda fort there, built in 1512-1687. I remember how he had to sneakily trade each meal in the dining room with one of his seminary mates: the kitchen assumed my western husband would want bland English style food and that his table mate, born in India but raised in South Africa, would want the reguarly spiced, hotter Indian meals.  However the two of them soon discovered they preferred each other's food spicing and surreptitiously exchanged plates at the table when none of the cooks were looking...they didn't want to hurt the feelings of the kitchen staff who were so proud of their ability to cater to "western tastes" for the first time.

 

I also remember the wicked, icy trip to the airport for me on snowblown highways when I went to pick him up, the 13 hour flight delay that left me stranded at the airport waiting for him all that time because the weather was too horrible to risk driving home and returning for him later on. The happy memory about that part of MY experience is that I was able to utilize my ability to wait (dang it, there's that word again), all alone for literally hours with nothing to do but think my own thoughts and eat snacks.  I didn't take a book with me as I had no idea I would be there all that time and the book store and cafeteria there were closed because it was on a Sunday and the number of departing flights was minimal. I also somehow missed the fact that I could have parked in the big parking lot for the daily fee of $12, possibly because all the parking lot signage was covered in a thick layer of fresh snow, instead of leaving my car in the short term metered lot and spending nearly $40.  However, the exercise of racing around the nearly deserted airport all day to find someone to make change for me, then running out to feed the meter every hour got me some (very) fresh air and a bit of exercise. hahaha 

 

Thanks For The Info......I Guess??

 This morning I read two different news items taken from a couple of recenty published medical journal studies that indicate women in my age group who average 6 hours or less sleep each night have a greater chance of earlier death and of developing dementia.

Well, good to know.

However, what I would really like to know, what I wish those articles had also reported on is what to do to change a short sleep cycle, to lengthen the number of hours of nightly sleep on a regular basis.

Neither article mentioned anything to give me any hope for the future in regard to my hours of sleep being able to be changed for the better!  Nope, nothing at all!  If there were any suggestions in the medical journal articles the newsfeed didn't pick those up.

So, I have tried hot milk, foot massages, back rubs, candlelight, (no relaxing pot pourris due to my respiratory allergies), sleeping pills, exercising, sleep counselling, reading myself to sleep, doing the reading in a separate room so that my mind only associates my bed with sleeping.....you name it, I have tried it. Nothing has ever worked.

Guess I am doomed to an early death....but I won't care because I will be lost in the mental maze of dementia.  

Why do I need to know these possibilities when there seem to be no answers to make positive changes? Why? Why? Why???? hahahahaha

The sun is shining brightly today!  The forecast high temperature this afternoon is +15C, SO I am going to take a short walk to the nearest mailbox after lunch to take advantage of the wonderful weather. This weather is supposed to last for a couple of days, followed by a weekend of cold temperatures and snow flurries before more "normal", warmer spring temperatures next week.  If the 14 day forecast is at all encouraging, I am going to bring up my spring and summer clothing bins late next week, or the week afterward, to start ironing the clothes and packing up my winter wear until this autumn, only 5 months away. hahahaha  

Off to clean the bathroom...isn't that exciting??!!! hahaha

Happy Memory #1

 I have decided that I am going to try to post one entry per day for a couple of weeks or so that is a happy memory!  Here is the first one:

This photo of myself and my son was taken at the Banff Centre circa 2008 when my son was doing one of several residencies there. It was a memorable trip in many ways.  It was summer in the Rockies, so the weather was perfect: sunny and not beastly hot. The scenery was fabulous.  We had a lot of laughs watching the gophers who had taken over part of the grounds due to a major renovation and expansion project happening at the Centre. I remember well having our car break down....as in die completely and eternally....the day we were supposed to be leaving!  That resulted in our having an extra glorious night in one of the well appointed Centre guest rooms while we waited for the auto wrecker to come and tow the car away the following morning and for my parents to come out from Calgary to pick us up and take us to their place. (Again with the waiting, right? hahaha)  My son had just broken up with his girlfriend of seven years a few days prior to our arrival, so it felt good to be able to be there to support him through a tough time.  I remember the deep and personal discussions we had with our son after having had very little opportunity to see or talk to him during the previous few years as he and his father pursued different university degree programmes in different provinces at the same time.  I remember how delighted my dad was to have an excuse to drive to the mountains in order to pick us up. It was one of the last out of the city trips he was able to make before he lost his ability to drive outside the city and I remember that it was actually my husband who drove Dad's car back to Calgary after Dad and Mom arrived at the auto wrecker's shop to pick us up. 

I have been having random flashes of happy memories despite a somewhat depressing weekend so I decided it would be good for me to unpack them through the venue of this blog.

Beautiful, Encouraging Creation

 With grateful thanks to my friend and photographer Kat:

 

 

                             East of Eden.....er, I mean Regina!

 
 

The Great Wait!

 It seems I spent almost all day waiting on one thing and another, so it was not a relaxed day, but it was an okay day.  After waiting all morning for our fresh 3cm of snow to melt, it warmed up a bit this afternoon and the sun was out for most of the day, so that was very nice. 

My day long wait actually began at 2:30am when I woke up and waited until nearly 5am to get back to sleep.

Then I woke up at 6am and waited for the alarm to ring so I could get up to go grocery shopping.

I waited outside the grocery store for it to open at 7am.  

After that I waited for the pharmacy to open at 8am.  

I returned home to find an injured goose outside my back door, so I waited for three or four hours for the animal rescue squad to have time to come to catch him and help him. Of course after sitting nearly immobile on my lawn for all that time, he arose on his one useful leg and flapped his one useful wing and "hobble-flapped" off about 90 seconds prior to the arrival of animal rescue.  He then managed to avoid their full hour of attempts to capture him and is still at large, so I am still waiting for him to get some help.  

The afternoon was spent waiting for a phone call from our fnancial advisor and that morphed into a couple more hours of waiting on my bank's IT department to figure out why the attempts to set up an e-signature were not working. 

Since getting up this morning I have been waiting for the opportunity to have a proper shower and wash my hair and put on clean clothes. Now that it is nearly bed time there is nothing else I need to be waiting on or for, so now is the hour to shower....finally!  

I do not wait well................

Tomorrow I am looking forward to a day with hopefully far less waiting.  It is time to start cleaning house again, I am reading an interesting novel set in India (Aren't all the really interesting novels set there?) and I have a couple of enjoyable tv shows recorded to watch when I do my indoor powerwalking around the living room.  I am going to get the housework done first, then change into a very nice outfit to celebrate a friend's birthday even though we cannot get together due to provincial pandemic rules.  I will take a photo and send it to her so she will know my heart is with her even though the rest of me can't be.

Yesterday I felt extremely hopeless and depressed all day...turns out that was the norm for many of the people I know here....city wide depression day!  Today I received several emails from fellow weekend depress-ees, all telling me how they pulled themselves out of the doldrums. What helped me was soaking myself in the book of Ephesians, chapter 2, the first ten verses.....good stuff, encouraging stuff...God is still there and he has not forgotten us stuff!

April 19: +3C and Snowing Like Crazy!

 WHYYYYYYYYYY???????????????

Changes Afoot: Is An Era of British Monarchy Ending?

 I spent my morning watching the CTV telecast of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral.  I wonder what is going to happen once Queen Elizabeth ll is no longer the monarch of the Commonwealth?  Charles doesn't seem to be all that popular and depending on when he takes the throne, he could rule for at least twenty years. What will have happened to the monarchy as an institution by then, I wonder.  Througout my life I have enjoyed learning about the place of the modern monarchy and I fear it is coming to an end, at least in terms of how my and previous generations have known it.

The funeral was wonderful! 

(and I thank the CTV correspondents for keeping quiet once the military bands reached St. George's chapel grounds at Windsor Castle so we could hear the glorious music and all of the funeral without them blabbing over top of the service participants)

It was, apart from the addition of the extra music and military rites, a fairly typical Anglican service that I so enjoy: no eulogies about the person who has died, simply a recognition of God's presence in creation, throughout life and his care of us after death.  The service is all about God rather than the person.  Eulogies and other memories of that specific person can be exchanged in the privacy of the family gatherings and, in non-COVID times, at luncheons for the funeral guests after the service.  I have never had much patience for funerals that are more about the dead person than about the God who created the person and particiated in that person's life. The funeral, to me, is supposed to be about the hope that God's people have in death and the afterlife. 

All the music was glorious and the four person choir who sang were quite spectacular, helped as well by the amazing accoustics in the chapel.  

The Queen looked rather tiny and very, very alone. I shed my tears for her as I watched her walking in and out of the chapel and sitting so isolated throughout the service.  I thought of how very alone my own mom feels now that my dad has died and the loss of spousal support must be magnified a thousand fold when one is the Queen of the Commonwealth.

So, I join in the sorrow of loss to our commonwealth of an amazing member of the Royal Family and I will be interested to see "the rest of the story".

Burgers! YIPPEE!!!

 O happy day!  The sun shone warmly today, ALL DAY, and the temperature rose high enough above zero that our upstairs bedrooms are quite warm this evening.  Apparently this lovely weather will be with us for another day or two before the next overnight snow showers and roller coaster temperatures next week.

My husband's class last night went so well. He had 24 students attend and their comments were so very encouraging.  Although he deliberately kept the teaching very simple to accommodate a wide range of student knowledge, many of them were thrilled to have "more depth" in the teaching than what they have been used to apparently.  When I look at the prep time he put into the course and what he will receive for presenting it I am laughing....it works out to about 17 cents an hour, hahahaha.  I think that is true of most free lance theological teachers.  They want to put everything they have into every course, seminar and YouTube video and they do.  Most of them are extra specially blessed to get paid anything at all and they don't care because teaching theology is what they live for.  My husband had the time of his life preparing this session and can hardly wait until the next one next month. 

We both had a bit of a concern this morning as we drove to my husband's dental appointment.  The work is fairly extensive and he has to record his sermon tomorrow and prepare his Sunday Evening Prayer Zoom service as well.  The idea of doing it with a sore mouth and the headache he usually gets for a couple of days after the anaesthetic, was a concern.  However, we needn't have worried.  Today the dentist was able to offer him some other options for treatment and so my husband left the office after the consult.  I only had to wait in the car for less than an hour.  There was a cancellation by a patient for an extended appointment time this coming Monday at 8am and so all the work will be done then.  Other than a short appointment the following week to put on a permanent crown, that will be the end of it in one fell swoop.  So, he can enjoy his work this weekend. YAY!!  What a lovely answer to our prayer concerns.

My husband decided he wanted a treat for lunch...specifically a burger!  Yikes, I can't eat fast food very often, but he suggested we try the burgers from the Milky Way dairy bar on our way home from the dentist.  Our burgers were such a treat....giant patties on huge buns and VERY old fashioned, just like the burgers I remember eating when I was a kid: mystery meat, ketchup, mustard, pickles, onions and a slice of cheese melted to absolute liquid yum and soaking through the huge white sesame seed bun, all of it wrapped in wax paper and foil and no yukky vegetables like lettuce or tomato to add something healthy into the mix.  It was fantastic for a change of pace. Milky Way does not serve French fries or "exotic" toppings like bacon.  They are essentially an ice cream shop with a burger option added.  The prices are incredibly inexpensive for the burgers.  We got our two giant burgers, with tax included for ten dollars and five cents! hahaha Wunderbar!!  Next year I will do this again.  My kidneys were most unimpressed with all the salt, as I knew they would be, but I still enjoyed chowing down on these plain, delicious old style burgers. Thank you Milky Way!

My pastor who has been suffering with COVID19 did come home earlier this week and has recovered so well that he will be able to participate in a couple of the prayers on Zoom church this Sunday morning. His family is also doing well and it appears that if he is careful not to overdo things, he is going to be okay. What a huge relief. Thank you all for praying for Pastor Rick.

Unfortunately this evening we received a prayer request for an Alberta friend who has just had emergency cancer surgery.  We don't know what kind of surgery Vee had, but she has had a lifetime of debilitating illnesses and has had a very difficult life because of them. Her husband Bear is trying to nurse her through her present recovery and figure out how he is going to get out into the fields in the next few weeks to plant his crop. Their tiny farm is a one man operation and is their main source of income, so not only has cancer struck down another of our friends, they are now also under the gun financially this year. If you have any spare moments left on your prayer list, Vee and Bear certainly do need prayers from lots of believers.

I started reading a novel while my husband was having his dental consult.  I am glad it was a shorter appointment than expected because it turns out this novel is written for young teenagers....ye gads what tripe!  Between social media and novels like this one it is no wonder so many members of our young generation are somewhat emotionally and intellectually stunted.  I am not going to bother to return the dumb thing to the conmmunity library box I found it in.  I tossed it into the trash as that is the best place for it!!  

So tonight I am about to sift through the remaining books I picked up from various community library boxes a few months ago and see if I accidentally picked up any more "winners" like the one I started reading this morning.  It was -25C the day my husband drove me around to the boxes and I didn't really get much chance to inspect the books available. It was too cold to take my mittens off and stand out in the snow balancing books while reading the dust jacket synopses. I just took a few wild guesses and grabbed a handful of books from each box that looked like they might be good reading. The 0ne I started reading this morning is the first one I have been burned by.  On Monday morning I will be sitting in the car for about 2 hours while my husband has his dental work done, so I need to be certain the book I take with me is one I am actually going to want to read! hahaha 

This afternoon my husband handed me a small journal his mother had written a few years before she died. She had recorded various important family events for each year from 1941 to 1971.  He had me type it up into a pre-selected format and get the dates of the various events into proper order to make it less confusing to read and understand.  It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon and to learn more about some of the events of my husband's family and his childhood.

And now for the weekend....what "delights" will it hold this time? hahaha  

   

Dear God of Weather....Make it STOOOOOOP.....Please?

 It's official:  After 5 days of this I have had enough. Bring on the spring!!

Sigh.......I WANNA HAVE SPRING!  NOT LATER!  NOOOOOOW!!!!

As Much As I Would Love To Have You Over For Tea On the Deck Today........

 .....there is a bit of a problem.......

Aaaaaah, spring on the prairies!  Those April Showers so popular in song are referring to SNOW showers in this part of the country.  Oh yay, it's "spring", but at least it is only -6C!

Crazy Weather for Spring!

 Although we have less than ten centimetres of snow at the moment, the wind continues to howl past our windows, bearing more snow and the temperature is BELOW ZERO!!!  In mid April it is below zero outside.  It is -2C with a windchill of -10C just at this moment. In mid April!!!  I was watching the rabbits outside today and other than a sprinkling of brown on ears and puffy tails, they are still mostly winter white, so true spring weather is not likely to happen for a few weeks yet.  How very discouraging.  

 It has been quite a hoot watching the geese fly over from the park and try to land on the icy wet snow that settled on the front lawns here.  When those big webbed feet drop down and hit the snow the poor birds go skidding for ten to fifteen feet before they can come to a stop.  hahaha  They look like surfers with their wings flapping madly as their bodies tilt from side to side  trying to come to a halt without falling over.

After an appallingly lazy day yesterday...okay I didn't feel well....I got all the laundry done today.  Apart from the cold water wash items that are still hanging up to dry, everything else is folded and put away. LOTS of trips up and down the stairs meant wonderful exercise for me.  Whatever was going on as my body took note of the vaccination I had last week seems to be over now and my energy returned today, thankfully!

Good chat with Mom tonight, my husband got a lot of ministry related work accomplished....no bad news from anyone today...although it is still early evening so that could change....let's hope not!  All in all it was a most adequate day.

Mom Is Okay After All

 My phone rang at 6pm yesterday. It was Mom! Her phone line had been repaired and she was delighted. She had thought to unplug her phone and try the spare that Dad used to use, just in case the problem was a dying phone battery. She had checked all the phone jack connections and taken a close look at both phones to see if either or both of them continued to display time and date even though the line was dead. She thought to do these things on her own, no one had to suggest them, she didn’t panic and break down in tears despite having some stress about the situation. She did remember that the front  desk staff would happily call a taxi for her to go to this week’s appointments if she still had no phone. Her heart attack was only six months ago, but in the past couple of weeks her emotions have begun to settle down. The way she has handled her latest couple of crises has encouraged me that I no longer need to freak out from wondering if SHE is going to freak out from stress every time a small problem arises. I have just awakened from seven consecutive hours of relaxed sleep 💤, thank you Lord! I am so grateful to the staff at Mom’s facility who contacted the phone company for her and arranged for the repair. 

We also received the hoped for call from my husband’s sister. She is weak after her terrifying bout of pneumonia, but she is strengthening her weak muscles, eating the delicious meals her husband makes for her and letting her body set its own rhythms for waking and sleeping. She is a fighter! She sounded amazing! So wonderful to know she is resting in her own home.

Mom received a lovely treat yesterday. The wife of my husband’s cousin, who has only met Mom once, about 20 years ago, decided to include Mom in a delivery of baking she was taking to her own mom. She is a generous soul, that is for sure. Mom feels incredibly blessed. She attacked the cookies immediately and so enjoyed having a home baked treat. Fresh baking and a working phone! Yippee!

After a weak start to yesterday’s forecast storm, we have awakened to about 10cm of fresh snow and I hear the ploughs working on the main street in front of our place. The light standards on the residential streets around us have been sporting No Parking signs for what was a scheduled spring street sweeping this morning, but that will not be happening now! More snow is forecast over the next few days so I am most grateful we can remain here at home until my husband’s dental work on Thursday. (I am happy he is teaching a theology class on Wednesday as it will keep his mind sufficiently occupied that he won’t have time to be nervous about his dental appointment!)

Off to do laundry so I can get some exercise around here today.

Giving A Snowy Day in Mid April The RASPBERRY!!!

 Our storm forecast has changed at least five times since last evening.  Our expected participation in the area of our province receiving the largest amount of snow at 25-30cm has dwindled drastically as the core area of the extreme snowfall has now moved far to the north east of our city.  The snow storm that was to begin here at noon has thus far amounted to a few minutes of wet flurries and an increase in wind speed.  Now, as we enter mid afternoon there are more tiny snowflakes, nearly invisible as they are so tiny, being blown about by the north west wind, but the sidewalks and streets are barely damp. Hmmmmm....storm?  Will it or won't it arrive here in our fair city?

My first attempt at blowing a raspberry at the possible storm was to get up early, after only about 3 hours of sleep overnight , get myself dressed, eat an early breakfast and walk over to the neighbourhood grocery store for 8am opening.  I got a get well card written up for a COVID19 stricken friend and wandered first to the nearest post box on my way to pick up three small bags of grocery items we will certainly need before my now rescheduled shopping trip a week from tomorrow....the idea was that if we could wait one more week for a major grocery purchase, then we wouldn't have to leave home this week IF an actual storm materializes over the next four or five days as originally forecast.  Poop on you storm, I have enough to eat and drink until long after you have blown yourself out....IF you arrive at all!!

Attempt number two for raspberry blowing was struck by my dear husband: as soon as church ended online, he was downstairs in the kitchen preparing baking powder biscuits and they are simply the best!!  Tall towers of piping hot fluffiness that bring out the flavour of my sugar free orange marmalade incredibly well.  Poop on you storm if you still have the audacity to arrive in my city today: not only do I have ENOUGH to eat, I am eating spectacularly WELL!!!  

Another raspberry was blown at the bad weather as we remembered we hadn't made our appointment this week as originally planned to take the car into the dealership and have the winter studded tires removed and the summer tires put on!  Hohoho! Take THAT stupid spring storm!  If we do have to leave home in the midst of your huffing and puffing and trying to blow our house down, we will be able to get easily to our destination on grippy tires!!!  

Another raspberry came in the form of extremely GREAT news of provision for my husband's upcoming dental work.  He knew he had to have a crown put on a tooth this week and we had budgeted for that, but then a couple of weeks ago another tooth broke and it also will require a crown.  Shoot!  Not enough in the budget for that, plus our dental coverage for this year is nearly used up all ready, so we were looking at about $1500 coming out of our own pockets. Hmmmmm....use the credit card and hope and pray for a way to pay it later? Not really our thing!  This morning I checked my bank statement and, surprise, my husband's tax rebate has been deposited.  It will cover the extra dental work and we will not have to go into debt for him to have the dental work he requires!  He won't have to put it off until we have saved some money for the extra work.  We NEVER get tax rebates this soon after doing our taxes, so TAKE THAT, dumb spring storm!  We have GOOD news here at our house today!  YES! Hallelujah!

In other news, I am feeling very badly for my mom right now.  Last night when I called her at 6pm, our usual chatty time, her phone line made an odd beeping sound that is different from a busy signal.  After trying to reach her for 40 minutes I called the desk at her facility where they told me Mom had just reported to them that her phone is dead, the line has gone down to her suite.  She will be phoneless until probably Monday and that will panic her no end, I am afraid.  SO, I am praying she will somehow, by some miracle, remain calm.  She has an appointment with the eye clinic on Tuesday afternoon to pick up her new glasses and if she cannot phone for a taxi to go there, I pray her brain will kick in through the upset and likely tears and she will remember she can ask the front desk staff to call her a taxi so she can keep her appointment. When she gets stressed and teary she cannot remember one single thing to do to help herself with whatever problem has cropped up.  If she has refrained from panicking, she will be just fine, will easily think of how to handle the situation on Tuesday and all will be well, but if she has a bad emotional reaction, I am going to end up suffering as much as herself.  I didn't sleep much last night because I am dreading having to try to help her calm down once she has her phone line up and running once again.  If it is actually her phone that is out of commission and she needs a new one, as soon as someone at her facility lets me know that, I will go out to the store, storm or no storm and get a new one for her. I can have it there in 48 hours or less if I just buy it myself and mail it to her. If I order it online, even from the store closest to her, it will be 4-6 weeks before it will be delivered. That is why I rarely shop for products online for her.  I can deal with things between local stores and Canada Post much more quickly than waiting for online deliveries to happen.

 My husband's sister is home from the hospital as of yesterday afternoon. She was able to send a 3 sentence, coherent email to let us know. Her hope was to be feeling well enough to phone us today, but we will see how she is feeling now that she has left the safety of the hospital room behind.  Although the lung infection is gone, she will be exhausted, no doubt, as she works on her physio to regain strength in her legs after a whole week in the hospital.  We are relieved she is home and under the watchful care of her husband.

 

The light flurries of snow have ceased again for now. Pooh, pooh on you, you big old nasty spring storm you!!!  The sky doesn't look dark enough to harbour enough snow to deter movement around the city today, but we shall see what tomorrow brings.