How Did I Keep This Pace Up Pre-Pandemic???

 The past two days have most closely resembled my level of daily activity before the pandemic shut most of the best parts of life right down!  Although I am rejoicing that, at least for now, everything is open and available for retail and medical services, that friends are contacting us again to get together, I am disgusted to see how my own level of energy has fallen off. I think I have aged nearly ten years in the past two!!

Yesterday I didn't have a lot of out of the home activities, just a few small errands, but Mom was having an emotional meltdown all day, so spent literally hours on the phone with her throughout the day.  By day's end she was finally returning to her happier, calmer self, melt down over.  Aaaaargh!  

Today was very, very busy....at least by my own standards after a year and a half spent alone and close to home nearly every day.  

I got up early this morning to go for a walk with a friend.  We did our usual walk around the lake, but we resurfaced street side only a couple of blocks from my pharmacy.  I had originally planned to walk home from the lake, thinking we would be exiting the park closer to my home, then take the car to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and some antihistamines to deal with the growing issue of asthma due to forest fire smoke descending on us every night. Well, it seemed rather ridiculous to walk three blocks home only to get in the car and drive the 5 blocks back to the pharmacy, so I just hoofed it the two blocks to the pharmacy, got what I needed and walked home again.  I stopped at Naked Bean for cinnamon buns, one of which I devoured in its entirety as soon as i got home. I realized that the next commitment of the day was going to take me through my lunch time and I would be passing out without a good sized snack mid morning.  Okay, okay, I KNOW a cinnamon bun is not the model for diabetic snacks, but I wanted it and I was famished from eating breakfast too early and I felt rebellious, SO I just ate it. So there!! Man, it was delicious!!!!

The next commitment followed soon after my snack.  It was the final Farewell to our Bishop event and my husband, the Bishop's former Executive Archdeacon, was giving a slide presentation so we decided we likely SHOULD attend! hahaha  It was a lovely gathering and I am glad I went along. Got to chat briefly with a few folk I have not seen in a long time and the Bishop gave a wonderful speech that I am glad I didn't miss.  However, the refreshments provided ( iced cream and donought holes) were not suitable for a diabetic who, less than 2 hours previously, had consumed an entire cinnamon bun!  Thank goodness that, although we drove part way to the Cathedral because of the rising outdoor temperature, we parked several blocks away and were able to get a bit more of a walk in to wear off that cinnamon bun as it turned to pure sugar carbs in my system! 

By the time the farewell ended I knew I HAD to eat proper food of some kind and eat it quickly, so my husband hurriedly packed up his slide show and took me on a short walk to a divey little restaurant called The Cure, for a wonderful all day breakfast brunch meal!  I was feeling famished, so of course ate the entire meal....I could have/should have brought home two of the strips of bacon and half the hash browns and one slice of sourdough toast, but of course I ate the entire plateful.  So, that is the second restaurant meal in a week and both times i consumed the full meal, pretending that going walking afterward would be sufficient to lower my blood sugar and keep my weight down....like, who am I kidding, right? Not even myself.  I simply reacted to all the emotional stress I am under and deliberately threw caution to the wind so I could eat like a hog and pretend there would be no consequences. Duh!!! I am confessing this because the shame of public disclosure will get me back on the proper dietary track if everything else, such as good sense, fails. We took a few blocks extra walk back to the car and would have walked more but the intense afternoon heat made that unwise. 

We arrived home to find a message on our phone that had been left there only about three minutes before we walked in the door. A friend had made some apricot platz and please could we come over for a piece of it and a cup of tea....SO, of course, since I had displayed such great food sense in the earlier part of the day, we immediately jumped back into the car and headed to their house for a wonderful two hour visit....and tea....and a huge slice of platz.  Sigh...... (don't worry, I paid for my sins and so for dinner had only a slice of bread with a thin layer of salt free margarine and and one square slice of low fat swiss cheese and one strip of dried mango with a glass of water, back on track)

We arrived home in plenty of time to call my mom at her usual 6pm time, then I had the aforementioned "dinner".  No sooner had I swallowed the last bite, but I received a text that Kat was on her way over.  That was lovely too.  We sat out on the deck on lawn chairs and wedged ourselves in around the overload of plant pots and had a great visit.  What a day.  I had exactly 12 hours of activity.

By the time Kat and I completed our visit I was exhausted. So, my husband and I watched the final day of the July sumo tournament.  Hakuho did very well, capping off his 14 day winning streak with a 15th win to take the tournament.  His opponent, Terunofuji, also entering the final match with 14 straight wins, didn't make winning easy and will still receive his promotion into the high rank of Yokozuna!  Congratulations to both men on their fine performances!  I am always sad to see the end of the tournaments, but there is one every couple of months, so the September tournament will begin in a few weeks.

Now it is finally time to fall into bed, perchance to sleep!!  I didn't do badly last night, sleeping almost 7 hours straight, very unusual and very wonderful.

FINALLY: Retail Therapy!

 Yippee skippee.....shopping at the mall for ME, MOI, MYSELF for a change of pace.  I didn't buy a lot, just a pair of white summer capris as I have been so short of white pants all summer, some adorably decorated Japanese sticky tape and a new drinking cup for the bathroom, BUT also a BEAUTIFUL pink and blue winter pullover sweater (in faith that I am going to live long enough to actually wear it hohoho).

Although I still wore my mask and am grateful that over 50% of the other shoppers in the mall wore theirs as well, the freedom to be able to shop slowly, take my time, enjoy looking at every item I wanted to view properly....even seeing that the larger stores have reopened their doors into the mallway....was dizzying.  I was SO HAPPY wandering around in there with my 4 little purchases.

It was the most "normal" morning yet since the pandemic restrictions hit us a year ago March.  Oooh, dat felt goooooood!!!  I was able to empty my purse of most of the cash I have been carrying in my wallet for over a year...that was quite a feeling, paying cash!  Not using my credit card and debit card tap features felt very odd indeed after using those for so many months.  Don't know how long this ability to shop in such a formerly normal fashion will last, what with the COVID variant numbers beginning to rise, particularly among the many unvaccinated folk, but for today it was just what I needed after a lazy week thus far in terms of my motivation to do anything other than sit around grumbling about how unmotivated I am! hahaha

Two more Bishop's Retirement commitments and my husband will be on holidays for a whole month!  I have been to a few of the events as well, but despite having a nice time with the other people also in attendance, I have no desire to return to the Anglican fold here in SK.  Perhaps if we move out of province next spring I will be able to find an Anglican congregation to fellowship with.  I do hope so, IF we leave SK in the spring.

Tomorrow my husband is going to a fancy schmancy goodbye lunch with the current office staff and the Bishop.  It is going to be held in a lovely restaurant that my husband enjoys greatly, so he will be very happy being with a much smaller group tomorrow, people that he worked with in the office for a number of years when he was the Executive Archdeacon.  It meant a lot to him to be included in that invitation as he retired from the office work nearly 2 years ago.  I am happy for him.

The following morning will be a huge public schmozzle of a gathering for the last farewell to the Bishop and his wife.  My husband is putting together a slide show presentation....had it all organized before I could talk sense into him about how he does NOT need this extra work and stress, but he loves his bishop, so I am glad he can do something special as part of his own personal goodbye.  I think I will just go and sit in a corner somewhere and let the event roll past me.  It will be noisy and crowded and I won't know too many people there.  However, I do want to support my husband and also maybe get a chance to say goodbye to the bishop's wife. She and I have had some lovely visits together over the years.

 

The forest fire smoke is not as bad today.  It was quite pleasant running about the city this morning in the sunshine and lovely +16C temperature. I was home before the temperature began its rise to +29C-+31C this afternoon. Whew!

I am happy to see that the temperatures where we are heading next week will not be above +30C according to the forecast....please Lord, let that be correct!! AMEN!!  

Musings

 Just now when I opened my blog page I Noticed that the icons along the left hand side of each post spelled:

"Hot ads knit gail(')s lathe".

hahaha  I happen to have a friend named Gail who used to sell her knit craft works at various farmers' markets over the years and in my mind I have a picture of a whole set of knit tools, including a lathe. hahaha

This morning I was thinking about how residential telephone call protocols have changed in recent years.  In most cities and other larger centres when I was growing up, indeed until only  a few years ago, no one with half a brain would even consider calling a friend prior to 10am for any reason but a dire emergency.  Waiting until after 10am was simply the polite thing to do.  Nowadays I get personal calls at all hours of the morning, sometimes as early as 8am...for which I am never ready, or fully awake. hahaha  When I first moved to a more rural area it took me years to get used to getting personal calls at 7am, or earlier, before various friends went about their farm work for the rest of the day and right through into the late evenings in every season but Winter.  I always find it so interesting to pay attention to how the small details of social interaction change over the years.

 

I thought about why I live in this part of the country.  Summers are far too hot and getting hotter, winters are far too cold and getting colder...thank you climate change~but as irritable as the weather here makes me most of the time, where else could I live that would be any better, right?  Each area of the country has its own weather related issues to cope with.

 

I thought about our likely move next spring.  If we were to leave this city where would we go and for what possible reasons?  Moving to the maritimes or southern ontario would put us closer to our son, but what if his next visa application is rejected in a year and a half's time?  What if he is forced to move back to the west coast?  What if we are too old to make good friends in a whole new part of the country we have never lived in before?  

 

In the midst of these somewhat inane musings the phone rang...at 9:30am and the name of my mother's residence popped up on the call display.  Oh no...now what?  Mom had a fall this morning from a chair in the bathroom onto the floor, smacking her head and already painful, long term bruised shoulder into the toilet and swacking her behind on the floor, which I think is just cement covered in a thin layer of laminate flooring.  The paramedics came because the staff at the facility are not allowed to try to move someone who has fallen in case there are broken bones involved.  The paramedics arrived, checked Mom out and said it is unlikely anything is broken, but they wouldn't know for sure unless she let them take her to the hospital for x-rays.  Mom refused to go.  She felt fine, just VERY sore and obviously bruised to the bone, so they told her not to call them again unless she discovered something for certain was fractured.  They made her feel terrible for calling in the first place, so she had to explain go them that she was not the one who had called.  I am thinking that paramedics get far too many unnecessary calls from seniors who live alone and those paramedics are already stressed, there aren't enough of them to meet the demands every day for ambulances and in home checkups, but I felt very badly for mom. She was already in enough pain from the bruising on her behind and shoulder without having the EMTs angry with her over a call she didn't make.  Anyway, she had to get over her upset about their attitude because the hearing aid staff from BelTone were coming later in the morning to help her adjust her new hearing aids and see if she can get a bit more intelligble sound out of them.  I am glad she had that distraction.  So far she has not called me back, so i assume she is coping with the discomfort okay for now. I already warned her how stiff and sore she is going to be tomorrow morning when she tries to get out of bed.  I am SO THANKFUL there appears to be no fracture or concussion.

 

Since the forecast temperature for today is +35C, my husband decided we would go for water and other groceries as soon as I was done talking to Mom.  As we were getting ready to go I happened to look out the front window and discovered a small field mouse in some kind of distress sitting in the bottom of our downspout.  Fortunately one of the maintenance staff was right around the other side of the building putting on the water sprinklers, so he came and dispatched the poor wee mousie.  It saved my husband having to kill it because although he has killed many a mouse in times past, he is getting soft about such things in his old age and was very grateful someone else could do it for him.  I believe that having to kill rodents and insects in order to protect ourselves from disease and destruction is one of those systemic evils in our society that began as a result of the fall of humankind way back at the beginning of creation.  It is very sad to have to kill another living being.  Wouldn't you know the mouse would pick our place to hunker down when wounded. Sigh...... 

Time to go and make my lunch and then an afternoon of ironing awaits me.  We have so many layers of blinds and fabric over all the windows it is like the inside of a cave in this suite today, but wow, it is worth it because all those window coverings certainly do keep the heat out on days like this.    

Happy Reminder of Ministy Past

 This evening I received the most wonderful and unexpected phone call!  A few years ago when we lived in another city I had a ministry for several years talking to people who rode the transit bus around the city.  Some of the people I got to know best were the drivers. Tonight I got a phone call from one of them. I haven't talked to him or seen him in a few years, but tonight he was watching the Olympic events from Tokyo on his tv and remembered my telling him how much my husband and I had enjoyed our lives when we lived there.  So, he gave me a call.  What fun it was to catch up with all our family and life news, Covid19 reports etc.  It was a very special treat for me. Thank you Lord for this man and his wife and the phone call tonight.

Overstuffed....Urp....But SO Happy!

 Oh what a glorious day!!  The sun is out but it isn't as hot as it is going to be tomorrow, there is a bit of a breeze....really, really nice outside.

Last night we had a spontaneous visit with friends. They served us tea and an array of cheese and crackers and fruit...lovely, lovely time and even more fun because of it being completely unexpected.  The air conditioning inside their house was perfect: not freezing us out, but keeping us comfortably cool.

Today I went frolicking with a friend from Moose Jaw that I have not seen in person since the autumn of 2019!  Thank you pandemic...yikes!  We had so much fun picking paint and painting supplies for her fence and foundation maintenance project, then we went to Oliv so I could use a years old coupon to pick up the last 2 bottles of white balsamic vinegar left in their present stock. Whew...had I waited until tomorrow as originally planned I am guessing both bottles would have been gone and it could be up to 3 months before the next shipment arrives. Thank you God and thank you friend for taking me there!  We hit a couple of Dollar Stores and I was able to pick up a few bags of salted, roasted cashews for my husband. He hasn't had any in a year or more.

Then we went to Agave Authentic Mexican Grill on North Albert for lunch!!  WOW!  There is another not too bad Mexican restaurant here in Regina, but this one is even better as far as the food and service....and NICE music in the background rather than a raucous rythym pounding in my head all through my  meal.  My friend had the daily special...cheesy nachos with home corn chips, jalapeno rounds, huge amounts of salsa and sour cream...unlike the mini cups of same you get in other places....oh, it looked fabulous and she said it all tasted delicious.  I ordered a chicken burrito with a caesar side salad.  The salad was good other than having far too much dressing, but the tortilla was superb.  It was a 12 inch tortilla filled to bursting with rice and refried beans, avocado, onions, lettuce, salsa and cheese.  I had to eat it with a knife and fork to prevent myself from wearing it instead, it was that packed with filling.  The freebie to start off was a small container of puffed corn pinwheel shaped chips with 3 different sauces to dip them into.  My friend and I finished eating those in about 30 seconds flat! YUM!!

Unfortunately Agave prides itself on being nearly 100% gluten free, so my husband will not be able to get any tortillas, or anything else, made with wheat instead of corn, so I am even happier that my friend wanted to introduce me to this lovely restaurant.  The food was truly delicious and well presented. The waitress was perfect...efficient, just friendly enough and only bothered us once during the course of our meal to see if we needed more drinks and if our food tasted okay.  Agave was a marvellous experience!

Now I am wondering if 3pm is a good time to start on the ironing accrued from yesterday's laundry extravaganza...hmmmm....I feel completely sated still from my 11:30am lunch, completely lacking in energy after a rare splurge of likely 8-10 carb units at lunch because yes, I DID eat the whole thing!  (hey, it is holidays and I haven't had a cheat like that in a very long time)

Raymond is doing well visiting with his brothers in BC.  So far they have been mostly untroubled by the forest fires that are burning not that far from their location, the RV should be fixed by now and soon it will be time for Raymond to go to his son's wedding in the beautiful Rocky Mountains.  

In a week's time we should be on our way to AB to see Mom and our beloved friends in Lethbridge, maybe working in a visit with old friends in Taber on the way home as well.  One thing we enjoy about AB is the number of friends we have all over the province, here and there and everywhere.  It makes visiting there both a joy and a challenge as we can't see everyone every visit.

Thanks Prayer Partners!

 Wow, things went so well last night. Somebody was certainly praying for me. Although the rowing events across the street ended at dinnertime, by 7:30pm the outside noise was so bad, the music from an outdoor concert 2km away so overwhelming, that we had to crank up the volume on our tv to hear it over the sound system at the concert venue. Even my husband, Mr. Calm and Accepting, was struggling to deal with the intensity of the drumming and hollering coming at us. Then just after 9:30pm, the noise stopped. The concert ended. Incredible. We were in bed asleep by 10pm and this morning there were miraculously no goose territorial wars going on at 5am outside the bedroom window. I slept for near 8 hours!!! 

Thank you prayer partners and thank you God. My allergic reaction to the forest fire smoke that was bothering me last night is also much reduced this morning so I am grateful for that as well. 

As usual, I posted about something I was struggling with, people prayed, help arrived. I am blessed by the community of people who pray.

A Lost BENEFIT Of The Pandemic....Sigh.....

 Now that our province has reopened, it means that annual summer events at the lake/park across the street from us have resumed after a glorious full summer last year of not being allowed to have them because of the COVID19 restrictions.

This afternoon the long boat races resumed their usual July event, so I've got booming music and voices blasting away from the loudspeakers over there. This will go on until 11pm or so this evening and the boats and competitors will be back on the water again sometime between 5am and 6am tomorrow to compete before the day gets too hot.  So, again, I will get insufficient sleep tonight. (the poor geese have already been driven out of the park and over onto our lawn...I actually sympathize with them as I feel "driven out" of my comfort zone as well)

And.......summer events are only just beginning....sigh....after the blessed quietness of last summer's event-less weekends I had forgotten the stress that happens for all of us who live within hearing distance of summer park and lake noise. 

I am praying I can not let my OCD bother me this weekend and just enjoy whatever is going on from a distance, not be upset at the irritating booming and blasting and blaring, that I can pray for calm to prevail in my mind and let it all go.  Unfortunately ear plugs do not block out bass guitar licks and drum beats, but I will do my best to cope rationally and serenely with God's help. My OCD really calmed down during COVID19 restrictions because everything around me was so quiet and under control.  A

And now...back to reality.

A Pleasant Saturday All Around!

 What a lovely day today has been thus far.  Although I had a dismal sleep last evening after drinking some fresh, acidic lime juice too close to bedtime that upset my kidneys, the day today has been very nice indeed!

I got up at 7am and got dressed and fed to be ready to go for a walk with a friend at 8:30am.  We were both tired out so only took one rather slow lap of one side of the "lake" before both of us admitted defeat and slogged ourselves home again.  I walked my friend to her car, which was parked near the Naked Bean, so my lazy self bought a couple of sandwiches there for lunch today.  Then I dragged my tired self back home again. My friend is babysitting her grandchildren this afternoon and they are quite a handful, so she was just as happy to keep the walk at snail's pace this morning and not travel very far.

The weather today is about perfect for a summer day in my estimation: sunny, a slight cooling breeze and a daytime high of only +28C.  It is such a gorgeous day and I wish every day of summer could be just like this one....but of course more intense heat is coming soon again.  That makes days like this even more special and enjoyable.  My husband has taken to putting covers over all the east facing windows overnight, then leaving them up until later in the afternoon when the hot sun has swung around to the west.  Those window coverings on top of the closed blinds keep an amazing amount of heat out of this suite, so we are going to put them up every night and keep our suite substantially cooler each day. YAY!  I have been looking ahead at the forecast predictions for our upcoming time away and so far it appears we will not be suffering any intense heat waves....so far, so far........

We watched Day 4 and 5 of the July sumo tournament from Nagoya today while we ate lunch....sweet!! (I mean we watched the tournament that happened and was recorded in Nagoya, not that we ourselves actually watched it in Nagoya...more's the pity....sigh....) Our favourite wrestlers are all doing quite well this time to start off. Hope it lasts for every one of them.

Last evening was a pretty good time: we drove out to one of my husband's parish churches to welcome the bishop as he cycled past the town and stopped for snacks (amazing rhubarb muffins with a topping of buttery brown sugar, raisin drop cookies, rice crispy square and puffed wheat cake) and a final farewell speech as he prepares to retire one week from today.  A few of the parishioners were there, so he had a small but enthusiastic group to hear about his cycling journey so far and wish him well for his future. (I livened things up during the bishop's speech when I accidentally poured most of a bottle of water INSIDE my purse....sigh)  He is applying for parish work overseas and hopes to have his present house sold by October so he can head out to a new life, much closer to his grandchildren who barely know him at this point.  It was a nice time and my husband and I were extended a personal invitation to come to visit him and his wife next year when they are settled into their new location.  Our prayer is that if there is ANY way we could go to visit them then we would be all over it....a last "big" trip for us before we get too old to be bothered trying to navigate overseas travel arrangments.  Our son would not be impressed though if we headed there instead of coming to the USA to see him so...the Lord is going to REALLY have to work some miracles for us to make either of these trips happen, let alone both of them!!!  However, my faith is BIG when it comes to things like this, so why not pray and see what happens, right?  Maybe nothing will. Maybe we will be going nowhere at all.  Maybe we will see answers crazier than our wildest imaginations. When God is involved anything is possible!  Always an interesting life!!!

 My husband is napping this afternoon.  I am so glad. He is finally starting to relax after all the stress of being with his dying sister.  He knows his brother in law is okay right now and not alone in his grief. A family wedding is happening next month so some joy will be injected into the family.  Ruth's funeral is not until September so there is time for her loss to start sinking in before we have to face that event.

Mom is so excited that we are soon coming to see her.  She is making lists of places she wants us to take her, items to shop for, chores to do AND, huge blessing, she is going to be allowed to go out to a restaurant with us for dinner one night.  It has been a couple of years since she was last in a restaurant with us and she is over the moon that we have agreed to take her to her favourite Chinese food haunt.  We no longer have to book visits with her facility in advance.  We can just arrive at any time to take her out or go into her suite to visit her, masks only necessary when we are in the hallways and common areas of her building.  We pray that can continue through the autumn so that we can see her at least one or two times with this much freedom before the possibility of another lockdown for COVID19 variants happens after a summer of people gathering for holiday events in large groups.  Praying nothing gets in the way of all this freedom in the next few weeks so that we can at least have this one upcoming visit together without a lot of hassle.

The son is all moved into the new apartment.  What a relief for him.  He was so certain that he would be forced to return to Bushwick...or worse.  His new area has many large trees and many of the apartment buildings have put in small flower beds visible from the street. While it is nothing like the lushness of his former residence in Vancouver, it is quite green and lovely by NYC standards.  His job is pretty secure at the moment and he is now waiting to see when the US border will reopen to the point where it is safe for him to come home for a visit without the worry of being rejected for re-entry into his American life.

My husband is coming with me to my church tomorrow so I am looking forward to that very much.  He will be so happy to see some of the friends there that he hasn't seen in months.  He is feeling very relieved today after telling a colleague that he will not be able to fulfill that colleague's request that my husband oversee the colleague's parish while he goes on a 6 month sabbatical.  The money is fantastic, but there is more to life than money. I am proud of my husband for turning down something so lucrative even though it means his friend has to find someone else. He is learning his age and health related limitations at last.  Bless his heart!!

He has enough to do next week. The bishop will be cycling into my husband's other two parish churches mid-week and so my husband will be driving out to those one evening.  We are both going to dental appointments that morning and in between the appointments and the evening meetings we are going for tea at the home of dear friends.  The night before all this my husband has to drive to one of his parish churches to meet with a new parishioner about baptising her baby. Next weekend he has a special staff farewell luncheon to attend with the bishop and the following day is a diocesan-wide farewell event.  My husband will miss his bishop very much after working closely with him in the office for several years.  He is grateful that he is only a part time priest because he won't have to be involved in the committees and procedures required for electing a new bishop in the fall.  YAY!! SO MUCH WORK and we are already praying for the people who will have these responsibilities.

After my dreadful sleep last night (again!) I think perhaps it is my turn to have a nap as well!!  

Dunder and Blitzen With A Side of Teeny Tornadoes!

 Last evening our part of the city received two cloudbursts of rain accompanied by bright flashes of lightning and some wickedly loud cracks of thunder.  We were able to avoid any hail, so that is fortunate for our tomatoes and herbs outside on the deck. Surprisingly our power stayed on throughout both storms.

One of our parishioners north west of the city was not so fortunate.  His farm experienced hail that destroyed his wife's huge market garden and two small tornadoes that took one of his sheds off its foundation, took down a number of small trees and swathed a pathway through one of his fields of feed crop.  Fortunately his cattle, pigs and bees are all okay, uninjured and their "homes" undamaged for the most part.  He was having a meeting with my husband in the town closest to his farm when his wife called to tell him the news, so he had to cut his attendance at the meeting short and head for home to survey the damage. 

My husband is going to try to go out to the farm tomorrow and help the family continue cleaning up the mess of broken branches and tree trunks and figure out if the shed is still sturdy enough to be returned to its foundation, or if if has sustained enough damage to warrant tearing it apart and rebuilding it. 

When I hear of these kinds of damage issues from weather, a bit of water in my basement after a rain storm doesn't seem all that significant.  Good to get things into perspective sometimes, isn't it?

So I Guess I SHOULD Be Completing the Housework Today, But......

 .....I didn't shut out the light to go to sleep until well after midnight and noise next door woke me up at 3:30am and I couldn't go back to sleep and then I had to get up at 8am and, and and......and now it is nearly 2:30pm and it is +31C both outside and inside this suite and that makes it too hot to work comfortably and....so....ya' know....NOT HAPPENING!!!  There is always tomorrow morning, right?  Of course right!!

The reason we had to arise at 8am was so that we could finish breakfast and be ready for a fairly early pastoral visit with my church pastor.  What a beautiful time of mutual support, encouragement and prayer as we all admitted to having various and serious struggles in our lives these days.  There is something special about having two pastors meeting together to assist each other in their lives and ministries.  It was a spiritually powerful time for my husband and myself.  We are both grateful for it.

 

I left to run some errands all around the city after the pastoral visit.  Without it being on my list of things to do, I ended up at a large grocery store to pick up quite a few items we will use in the next few weeks.  Although most of them are not immediately needed, the sale prices were fantastic and every item will be used soon enough.  Overhearing a couple of grocery clerks talking about the amount of product that store will be looking for in the event of a somewhat probable 4th wave lockdown due to the upswing in Delta variant as the pandemic restrictions are being lifted, I gave in to a little wave of paranoia and bought a carton each of toilet paper, paper towels and kleenex that I likely won't need to use until sometime in September!!  hahaha  Aii yii....silly I know, but there ya' go.  I done did it!

 

For lunch today we mixed up some sandwich spread using leftover steel head trout from last night's dinner and adding in some home grown basil and dill.  Oh, my, my, my....sooooooo delicious.  Yummy!  My husband is not stingy with the herbs and knows just how to make mashed up, leftover cold fish fillets taste amazingly good.

 

Tonight my husband has a meeting with his church wardens; three fellows who do enjoy meeting over a can of beer from one of the local craft breweries.  Now that in person services are happening again there is a lot to discuss in terms of how long their particular parish will continue to use masking and distancing protocols. Many there do not feel safe enough yet to stop using them and likely won't feel like they can return completely to pre-pandemic practises until any 4th wave of the Delta, Gamma and Lambda variants that may start up in a couple of weeks, is coming to an end. 

 

I will enjoy my few hours alone at home tonight. Perhaps it will be cool enough in here to start cleaning the last 2 rooms in this suite.  I have decided I am not going to watch any of the Olympics this time.  I am getting tired of the constant scandals and issues that occur every time these games happen and this event in Tokyo really kind of upset me. Two different Japanese men with important positions with the games were fired in the past few days: one because years ago a comedy troupe he was part of had a skit or a joke about the Holocaust that was tasteless in my opinion too, but not worthy of being fired from a completely different job years later. The other man because many years ago as a teenager he had bullied some other kids.  What these sorts of firings are telling me is that from now on, each time a baby is born its parents must raise it to be living in constant fear over every word the baby speaks and every action it takes, right from its first day of its entry into this politically correct, mixed up, arbitrarily social media run world.  Every child will have to grow up completely paranoid, subject to the whims of anyone who has the temerity to stand up and complain whether or not their complaint is substantiated....to me these latest firings are the icing on a cake that has me very worried about the social future of people on our planet.  In Japan, an example of shame culture, losing a position over something like that brings not only shame to the fired men and their immediate and extended family members, it is likely to guarantee neither of them will every be hired for any sort of employment ever again in Japan.  I will not be surprised, if any more of these sorts of firings take place, to see a string of suicides by some of these folk in order to excise their shame.  I pray that will not happen.  It is an indicator of my own stress level that I am paying this much attention to the Tokyo Olympics in the first place! 

 

The only Japanese sporting event I AM watching these days is the July Sumo Tournament!!!  YES!!  Yokozuna Hakuho has returned after missing some tournaments due to injuries.  My favourite Juryo member, Tokoshoryu, has been promoted back to Maegashira level and he won his first bout of the tournament.  Since the tournment is actually over in real time, it is tempting to look ahead to see who the eventual winner is, but I will control that impulse and spend a few days watching the daily matches.

 

So now it is creeping up on 3pm. My husband is napping and since I am running on only 3 hours of sleep I suppose I should give that a try as well, but instead I think I am going to do some of the dusting that awaits me in those last 2 rooms that need cleaning.

Keep It Movin’ Mrs.!!

 My little rant this morning seemed to energize me. This afternoon I wanted to clean the bathroom, but by the time I ran out of steam, (and actual time), the dinner hour meal prep was upon me. I am so grateful that there are only the two small bedrooms left to clean tomorrow afternoon! Yay!!!! After the bathroom was cleaned I was able to continue working for a few more hours. 

My minister is coming over here on the morning to pay a condolence call to my husband, for which I am delighted. They have been trying to carve out time to get to know each other over the past three years with little success, until they went on retreat with a couple of mutual friends this spring. My minister has been very supportive of my husband over the death of his sister. Thank you Lord! 

Mom is doing pretty well these days and so is our son, for which I am most grateful. Raymond and his brothers may soon be on evacuation alert for new forest fires in their area, so we are praying Raymond will be able to complete some necessary repairs to his RV and get out of the area while sone of the main roads there are still open. He may not be able to head back east if things get any worse with the local fires, but may end up travelling farther west instead. Fortunately he has friends in Abbotsford and Vancouver if that happens. He has to get back to AB for his son’s wedding in less than a month’s time! COVID19, death of a spouse, his own cancer situation and now forest fire complications! Dear Lord, can you please give the man a break now?? Please? Thank you....

My husband is finishing up writing a requested article for the Diocesan newspaper. He enjoys writing for them. It is relaxing and a lot of fun too. He slept in this morning, spent the whole day writing, I cooked him steelhead trout with roasted potatoes, onions and carrots and petit pois...a nearly perfect dinner in his opinion. haha

It was a happy day all around.

No More Conspiracy Theories Please!

 Recently we were accused by someone of being conned by the government by continuing to wear masks, maintain distancing and sanitizing at our churches for awhile yet, despite the government decision to lift those restrictions. We are apparently dupes for falling for the government's fear tactics over the pandemic situation in their attempts to control their subjects.  Without any discussion, without any questioning us as to why our congregations continue to do those things, there was an instant assumption and accusation that we are just being sucked into the government conspiracy to take control of the lives of Canadian citizens.  Fortunately for the people accusing us, I was too momentarily stunned to respond verbally and my husband, gifted mediator that he is, was able to instantly respond in a way that completely deflected the conversation and resulted in a happy visit for the rest of our time together.  My biggest question, that thankfully I didn't get to ask, was that if we are being duped by the government who wants to control us and strip us of our rights, why would we continue masking etc., when that very government told us we no longer have to do those things?  Why did my husband and I start wearing masks BEFORE the government edicts came down?  Was there any chance for us to talk about the fact that we have been wearing them and getting vaccinated for the sake of possibly protecting OTHERS from viruses WE may unwittingly be carrying?  Was any credit given to us for trying our best to do what might protect someone else even if we did feel our own rights to do whatever we want were being taken from us? Nope, all we got was a surprise attack that left us both quite shaken.  

As I have watched and listened to various friends and aquaintances who have decided not to be vaccinated or follow the common sense sanitation rules mostly because they feel the government has no right to ask us to do those things for whatever reason, I have come to a point of being fed up with the whole conspiracy nonsense and I am not going to continue actively pursuing those relationships for the time being.  I have so much other stress in my life right now that I don't have the energy to deal with conspiracy theorists who actually believe the Canadian government members are sufficiently organized and intelligent to come up with such plans to control us.  Believe it if you want, but don't attack me over my differing thoughts.

The idea that the vaccinations are some sort of evil killing machines to rid the countries of the world of excess population, or are being used to deliberately turn us all into government guinea pigs for dastardly medical researchers, that micro chips are being implanted into our bodies through the vaccination needles, that vaccinated people actually "shed" cells that contain the virus so that it spreads easily to others, are such nonsense and being promoted by so many "home" newspapers, speeches, articles and other unscientifically based people and organizations that I can't bear to listen to any of it any more.  What I resent most is people refusing to be vaccinated because of these sorts of idiotic ideas, but are quite happy to ride on the coat tails of those of us willing to take the possible negative consequences of being vaccinated because they think it keeps THEM safe, with no thought that as unvaccinated people they may be the ones responsible for carrying the virus and spreading it around.

However, my biggest issue with people not being vaccinated is not so much their refusal to be so based on their belief in unscientific, unproven conspiracy theories, the issue is their attacking ME for for also doing what I think is right. I have a number of friends and aquaintances who have chosen not to be vaccinated or to follow other COVID19 safety procedures for the past year for various reasons, some of them due to their belief in conspiracy theories and I don't have to agree with them to continue with our wonderful friendships.  I am not going to verbally assault them because I don't agree with their choices because those choices ARE theirs to make.  Things will only grind to a halt if and when they attack me for my decisions, decisions I have the right to believe are for the greater good of the general population than just being about my own personal rights.

Okay, end of rant.  Do as you choose everyone, but I am not going to attack you if you choose differently than I do, so please try to show me the same courtesy. Thank you!

These Hazy, Lazy Days of Summer!

From Yesterday:  A bit of rain overnight and early this morning shut down my walk today, but my friend and I have rescheduled our meeting for the weekend, so all is not lost.  Unfortunately this bit of rain won't accomplish much for the farm lands butting up to our city, but the local gardens have had a bit of moisture this morning here the temperature is not supposed to be wickedly high today.

The smoke from the northern fires has kept us blanketed with a bit of insulation against the intense heat for the past couple of days.  Only once or twice has there been any noticeable odor, so that has been a blessing for asthmatic moi.

Sunday I had a rather lovely walk to church, before the day became beastly hot, but I don't think we even broke the +30C mark, so it wasn't so bad even then.  Yesterday was supposed to reach a high of +38C, but with the thick smoke in the upper atmosphere we only reached +27C...lovely!!

It was so good to see so many people returning to church on Sunday.  Although we are still using masks, distancing, sanitizing and directional floor arrows until the end of the summer, we stood outside and in the outer foyers visiting for a long time after the service ended.  Watching people reconnect after not seeing each other for months was quite a wonderful blessing. I felt rather "talked out" by the time I headed home.  

My husband had his first service in over a year out at his main church on Sunday morning.  What a joy to be preaching in person to his parishioners and seeing the joy in their own faces as they worship and celebrate the Eucharist together again.  Masks and distancing are still in place there while inside the building, but once the service was over everyone piled outside to chatter for a long time.

It was my husband's last service to perform until the first weekend in September, after his month of holidays.  This week and next he has special commitments with his churches to welcome the bishop. The bishop is visiting every church in the diocsese prior to his retirement at the end of this month.  There will be a special luncheon for him next week with his current and some former office staff and then on the 31st there will be a public farewell gathering to say goodbye. Then begins the sometimes onorous task of selecting a new bishop.  I admit to being selfishly grateful that my husband is no longer the Executive Archdeacon and has no responsibilities in planning for this election.  YAY!!

After a relaxing Sunday afternoon, I made a salad with avocado, lime, chili dressing and spicy chips to take to a bbq out of town.  It was a most joyful time with old friends we haven't seen in months. They have a marvellous bbq area in their yard.  We had freshly caught northern pike and roasted root vegetables with strips of bacon and sprinkled with freshly picked garden herbs.  A delicious lentil salad was added in as well.  Dessert was iced cream smothered in fresh saskatoon berries.  My husband nearly lost his mind, he was so excited about those saskatoons.   A bit wine and a closer of roi boos completed our wonderful meal.  It was great to get caught up with all our friends' news and share with them some of the happy things going on in our own lives.

Yesterday was kind of a lazy day.  It took us until after lunch to get outside and get going on some errands after spending the morning watching the finals of the weekend's Calgary Stampede Rodeo. Mom and I had such fun talking about it during our conversation last evening.

Today we are taking some friends to lunch at their favourite restaurant.  They have done many things for us over the past year because they do amazing things for all their friends and we feel blessed to be counted among that number.  It will be fun to see them after a rather long absence from in person visiting.

I never cease to be amazed by the friends that we have...GOOD friends all.  They do so much for us and I don't know how we will ever be able to keep up with their generosity.  In the past week we have been offered everything from hotel rooms to air conditioners to help us travel and cope with the heat.  As word is getting out that my husband is planning to be fully retired next year we are getting all manner of folk asking us if we would consider retiring in their particular part of the country so we can see more of each other.  It is amazing, incredible and deeply, deeply humbling.  It seems to us that each of there people have, over the years, given far more to us than we have ever given to them.  How blessed are we?!  I doubt we will actually leave Regina, but we do want to be able to spend more time with friends near and far, to be available to THEM to help them with their needs.  Lord willing!!!

Yesterday we received confirmation that we have been accepted into the provincial senior's health plan.  Good news. Our other health care provider will be happy with us.  Now the two plans can battle over who is going to pay for what. I don't care who pays the costs as long as it is not us. hahaha   

This morning my husband booked our hotel for our 3 days in Calgary with Mom in August.  The rest of our holiday plans are on hold until we see how the forest fire situation is going to pan out. We know we are going to Edmonton in September for Ruth's funeral, so may have to take the rest of our Alberta travels at that time.  I am hoping we can leave for AB after my husband does his church service the week before the funeral, head first to see friends on the route to Edmonton and then stay for the better part of a week with Raymond to help him go through Ruth's things before heading home for my husband's next church service. By then the forest fires SHOULD be over, or at least more under control....at least that is the hope and prayer.

 

I’ve Had My Patience Tested.

I’m negative.

Tee hee.......

Looking forward to some socializing again in the coming days. Kat kicked it off last night when she arrived with a giant bag of dill freshly ripped from her garden, where masses of it were smothering the carrots. We had fun visiting while we processed it and got it into freezer bags. I have enough dill to last for months! Yay!! Kat’s brother missed having a direct encounter with the recent Barrie Ontario tornado by half a block! 

Sunday evening we are driving out of town to have a bbq with friends. They have a lovely backyard where we can sit outside to enjoy the meal together under the trees that will shade us from the intensity of the late afternoon heat. 

Next week I have a walk scheduled with a friend, lunch out with my husband and another couple from my church, plus a second walk followed by iced coffee on another friend’s roomy back deck. These visits are greatly looked forward to! 

The smoke from the forest fires in the north of our province finally made its way here overnight. We are not (yet) getting the thick smoke Saskatoon has been dealing with and fortunately for me, our smoky haze is comprised of true wood smoke rather than man made materials, so the smell is mild and not bothering my lungs at this point. Hallelujah! If it gets no worse by tomorrow I will still be able to walk to church.

Another hot day awaits us.

Gadzooks, It's Terribly Warm Outside!

 I am not sure I will survive the summer heat!!  It was "only" +33C today and late this afternoon it was so hot in this suite that I fell asleep on the couch, waking up at 5:30pm in a stupor, being unsure of where or even who I was.  Fortunately I was able to rouse myself sufficiently to get the east side windows open and the floor fans running while my husband found our little old BBQ grill down in the basement and used it on the back porch to cook dinner: some cheap sausages that we ate rolled up in fresh pitas.  Too hot to eat, too hot to care, too hot to even stay awake.  WOW, I won't make the mistake of falling asleep mid afternoon ever again. Yikes, I felt MISERABLE when I woke up.  Now it is evening and the air is starting to cool for overnight.  I am grateful!  As it is only going to get warmer for at least the next ten days, I will have to pay more attention to my blind and window opening and closing patterns than I did today.

My husband and I had a lovely morning!  We got a move on and were out the door by 8:30am for a lovely walk in our old, well treed neighbourhood.  We waltzed up to the post office, then over to the Synod office where my husband used to work, where we used the laminator to laminate our vaccination cards so the cheap paper they are printed on doesn't disintegrate in our wallets.  There are a few businesses here now requiring proof of vaccination status before customers will be allowed inside.  We stopped by the Naked Bean on the way home for a couple of tasty sandwiches and their last cinnamon bun of the day.  My husband has a "thing" about not using even the stove top for cooking in the midst of this heatwave.  Now that he has moved the small BBQ grill out onto the deck we can use that to cook our lunches and dinners.  YAY!  

After a drink of water and a cooldown at home for a half hour, we drove ourselves to the new FreshCo grocery on South Albert street.  It has only just opened and we found some great bargains there today.  We went to purchase apples and some flavouring for carbonated water and came out with nearly sixty dollars worth of assorted groceries. hahaha  They have a bit more selection of ethnic foods than many of our other stores, AND best of all they have frozen Japanese treats:  flavoured mochi balls, "creamsicles" made with our choice of red bean paste or  matcha with yam paste cubes, red bean paste and black sesame seed ice creams.....WOW!  I don't know of any of the oriental groceries here that have such a good selection of specifcally Japanese frozen desserts.  I suspect we will make several trips to FreshCo this summer!  Then we went to the Superstore for some of my husband's favourite Tong Peanuts. They are super oily and with his high cholesterol he can't eat many, but every three days or so he has a small handful. The 4 small bags we purchased will last him for a couple of months or more.  Peanut oil settles his stomach and has warded off more than one of his horrible digestive attacks over the past couple of years.

 

This afternoon I called an out of town friend who sent me a most wonderful gift that arrived yesterday: an incredible Rowenta iron!  She didn't sent it because I was in desperate need of an iron, she sent it because she knows I do as much ironing as she does, LOVES her own Rowent iron and wanted to share that joy with me...just 'cause.  WOW!  I used it today and it is wonderful!  It is heavier than my other iron, so I don't have to push on it so hard to press out difficult wrinkles AND the best feature for me is that the temperature control and the steam feature work independently of each other, so I can have heat with more or less steam depending on the fabric I am ironing and how badly wrinkled each item is.  I get to choose how much steam I need for each item.  Fantastic!! Thank you friend, what an unexpected treat and a practical one that I will use every week!  

 

Yesterday was a good day too.  I received my osteoporosis injection and my doctor was in a very chatty mood.  She and her husband were delighted with a card my husband and I sent to them a few months ago offering prayers for their family members who live in India and had been watching the COVID19 numbers there rise at an alarming rate.  We knew they were feeling cut off and helpless as to how to help their families.  Yesterday she thanked me for the card, but also "for all that you do for me".

Whaaa??? Other than showing up for treatment and sending one card of support, I couldn't figure out what I have ever done for her other than obey her commands for treatments and tests etc.  She told me that she struggles at the clinic they are in and that I never yell at her, I don't berate her for her foreign accent, I am cheerful and kind to her. Apparently these are rare events in her daily life as a physician where she is meeting a lot of racial prejudice, impatience on the part her patients and serving many people who frighten her.  Wow......she is steering through deep waters most of her days at work and so is her husband who has the same upsets during his work day.  She doesn't like living in Canada, at least not here on the prairies with the extremes of heat and cold.  She is constantly afraid of what people from Canada will do and say next that will hurt her feelings and make her feel physically threatened.  She really "let it all hang out" yesterday and I am so grateful I was there to hear her and try to make her feel at least a bit better....temporarily anyway.  I am so glad I am her patient.  I know she is insecure, that has been obvious since the start of our doctor-patient relationship, but to be able to listen to her and to know better how to pray for her was a special, God granted privilege that I will not take lightly.  She must have been feeling particularly upset yesterday to have shared so much of her discouragement with me, so now the burden from the Lord is to pray and pray and pray some more for her and for her husband and for their families overseas.

 

My husband is feeling more on top of his feelings of grief over the loss of his sister. Losing a sibling is not something you ever get over, but he is more in control of his emotions. Friends and family and even complete strangers have been so kind in their condolences. Our house is filled with beautiful cards with expressions of sincere sympathy for his loss.  Really, really appreciated by him and by me too.  Blessings to one and all.

 

Mom is having the time of her life this week. Monday's outdoor summer picnic in the park next to her facility got her geared up for the Stampede style activities going on the rest of this week.  Yesterday she went to watch other residents playing various Stampede types of games, but she ended up playing 7 of the games herself! hahaha  She won lots of tickets to put into various draws for cool gifts and came home with a gorgeous fabric carry all bag and a Stampede coffee mug!  Tomorrow is the pancake breakfast with some country singers and she is all geared up to go and enjoy herself once again before all the Stampede festivities come to an end!  I am so proud of her. She is enjoying a new tablemate at dinner as well.  She has been making jokes on the phone when we talk each night and she has decided that when this week's special Stampede activities are over, she is going to try harder to get out and participate in the other weekly events right in her own building.  YAY MOM!!

 

Tomorrow morning I am going to go to buy some items to send to Mom that she can't get herself and then do some more ironing with my fancy gift!  Then the weekend is staring me in the face once again: my husband will be up to his ears in sermons and church "stuff" until after service on Sunday morning. I think I will walk to my own church this Sunday as I will get home again just as the most intense heat of the day is starting up.  Hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and water scarf will save me from heat hassles. 

We got a start yesterday on planning our holidays happening later this summer.  Friends from Alberta called us to say they want to see us very much, so we will begin our time off with a trip to see Mom for a few days, then head out to visit our very first Anglican priest and his wife for 3 glorious days.  We are very excited about it!!  Later on we will likely return to Alberta to see other friends and family as well.  So, my husband's month of holidays is coming together with very little effort.  This weekend I will get the hotel booked for our time with Mom. O yay! I haven't been particularly excited about holidays this year, but as we think about Alberta friends we are starting to really look forward to the trip.  O yay!!

A Beautiful Prayer

 

Prayer of Eusebius (3rd century)

 

May I be no one's enemy,

and may I be the friend of that which is eternal and abides.

 

May I never quarrel with those nearest me:

and if I do, may I be reconciled quickly.

 

May I love, seek, and attain only that which is good.

May I wish for all people’s happiness and envy none.

 

May I never rejoice in the ill-fortune of one who has wronged me.

When I have done or said what is wrong, may I never wait for the rebuke of others, 

but always rebuke myself until I make amends.

 

May I win no victory that harms either me or my opponent.

May I reconcile friends who are angry with one another.

May I never fail a friend who is in danger.

 

When visiting those in grief

may I be able by gentle and healing word to soften their pain.

 

May I respect myself.

 

May I always keep tame that which rages within me.

 

May I accustom myself to be gentle,

and never be angry with people because of circumstances.

 

May I never discuss who is wicked and what wicked things they have  done,

but know good people and follow in their footsteps.

One Pastor's Wife Perk!

 This past Sunday I was a recipient of one of the oldest perks of being a minister's wife: being given the flowers that graced the altar during the service.  It is a delightful gift every time!

This past Sunday our altar was graced with gorgeous yellow lilies spotted with large dribs and drabs of deep purple.  Unlike the Easter season orange tiger lilies that make me sneeze and gasp for breath, these yellow and purple lilies are unscented. They are just beautiful!

Thank you Dorothy!

I May Lose the Battle, but I Did Win the Skirmish!

 Yesterday morning was very discouraging!  We got into a battle with our medical insurance company over coverage for my extended health benefits medication. Despite paying hundreds of dollars per month to this company for medical coverage, over the past year or more they have been balking about paying for my osteo meds despite my having all the provincial government paperwork allowing the coverage.  Finally, since I had to order the medication again yesterday, we contacted a representative of the company to find out what is going on.  Apparently, unbeknownst to us, our provider is now insisting that people over the age of 65 also apply for drug coverage under our provincial senior's drug plan.  What a hassle!  I was told that the meds I had to order yesterday, nearly five hundred dollars worth, would not be covered at the pharmacy and that I would have to pay out of pocket until I received confirmation of whether or not we qualified for the provincial plan. Then, in what will likely be a few MONTHS until we receive that paperwork, we have to forward it to our pension plan medical providers along with the receipt for the osteo meds I just bought so they can fight it out between them as to how much each company will reimburse me.  I asked what would happen if I couldn't afford to pay out of pocket and was told so very cheerily that oh well, I would have to do that if I "want" the meds "that badly".  "WANT"???  What about "NEED"? I am afraid my response was not the most godly.  It wasn't because of my anger over the new company policy that we were not informed about, it was the cavalier attitude of the service rep.

Well, I HAVE to have the meds, so we decided that if we had to pay out of pocket, we would just have to use our credit card and trust God for a way to pay it off next month.  Off I went to the pharmacy last evening, when it wouldn't be very busy, to order the meds.  I told the fellow who put my prescription into the system about having applied that day for the provincial senior's programme and how last time I had ordered this med, the pharmacist on duty had punched "pending" into our pension provider's question regarding our status with that plan, even though at that point I didn't understand what that plan even was and certainly had no idea we were supposed to have applied for it two years ago!!!  The fellow went to the pharmacist on duty and explained the whole situation to him.  That pharmacist, bless his amazing heart, asked me which medical insurance provider we are with. When I told him the name of the company, he said to the fellow who took my prescription to run this order through the same way as the last one as he is not impressed with our usual provider and has had many unhappy dealings with them in the past.  Bingo bango, I walked out of the pharmacy twenty minutes later, prescription in hand, no charge to me!!!  Thank you God!!  Fortunately I will not need another refill until mid January, so there is lots of time to sort out the application to the provincial plan.  I am so grateful to the Lord and to the pharmacist and staff at my drugstore. My appointment to see the doctor who administers the meds is tomorrow!  YAY!

I had a nice evening after getting my meds.  I drove over to SaveOn Foods and Mike's Independent to pick up a few groceries so I wouldn't have to get up early today to do that.  I was amazed and happy to see so many people still wearing masks at both stores, at the pharmacy, at the provincial health offices earlier in the day AND at the restaurant where we had lunch!

YES, another restaurant meal at my husband's instigation...again!  Honestly, the man leaves me alone and car-less for 11 days and goes crazy atoning when he gets home! hahaha I didn't even think he was guilty of anything! hahaha  

I had a steak sandwich at the Knotted Thistle.  It was really good.  The meat was a perfect medium rare and I was allowed to substitute salad for the fries.  My husband had a clubhouse that came on a ciabatta bun and it was also very good, with slices of grilled ham instead of the dreaded deli "meat" that you sometimes get even in otherwise nicer restaurants.

I think I have convinced him that we don't have to have any more restaurant meals now for at least 4-6 weeks.  Luiggi's, 3 days of Indian meals from DarBar and now lunch at the Knotted Thistle.....wonderful summer holiday fare, but enough is enough already. hahaha  I would like to have enough money to go to see my Mom when we start our August holidays!!  Friends from Lethbridge have also asked us to come to see them soon, so that would be a marvellous treat.  I would far rather spend the money on that.  Bless my dear husband. I suspect he became very tired of his and Raymond's cooking when he was away. hahaha

Speaking of Raymond, he called last night and is doing quite a bit better.  His sister is an awesome woman and her visit with him has gone well.  He will be gone for his family visit in a few days.  The legal paperwork is well underway.  We are very proud of him for keeping it all together to do these things while he is grieving so deeply. The funeral plans are in place for September.

Mom is doing much better this week than she was last week.  I had her go through some of her files with me over the phone last night and we got a few things straightened out.  What I am discovering is that many of her rough days with her memory are a direct result of insufficient socialization.  Over the weekend and all this week, there were and are many Calgary Stampede related events happening in her facility. On Sunday she started attending them and is so much brighter mentally, happier over all and is seeing for herself that she must try harder to visit other people within her own facility and attend more of the events.  Yesterday there was an afternoon picnic in the park next door, sponsored by her facility, so she pulled herself together in time to go to it. Each attendee was given a lunch box with a sandwich, candies, slices of fruit loaf and a carton of fresh fruit. They sat together at tables and Mom had a wonderful time chatting with a woman who "had a voice loud enough for me to hear!"   Today she is going to a special lunch in the dining room, tomorrow is Stampede Midway Style Games in the social room and Friday is a Stampede Breakfast. She is going to those as well.  It is going to be a happy week for her and she is very excited.  Whew!  So glad to know that she IS willing to be more social and responds so well to the stimulation of the visits and activities despite her hearing issues.  Next week she should be getting her new hearing aids.  Thank you Lord.  We may be able to delay our trip there until my husband's holidays start.

Received a happy email from the son last night.  Almost moved into the new apartment, just waiting for a few more items to arrive from storage and to purchase a few more dining room table chairs and kitchen gadgets.  It is lovely that the apt. in Manhattan is still available to stay in until things are more settled in the new place.  He is running crazy with extended work hours as well, still promoting his art show as he continues to hound his various friends who write for art magazines and papers to actually write the review he needs....still a major prayer request.  He is happy and busy and loving life.  The break from other ongoing stresses has been very good for him.  I praise God for this lifting of the strain, however long it lasts.

Today we have a few errands to run so I am glad to be free to drive around the city with my husband, just enjoying the sunshine.  A couple of friends want to do some early morning walks with me in the coming days and weeks, so that will keep me motivated during this next intense heat wave.  It is too easy to just sit around moaning about being too hot every day.  Here's to another good day!!