Ain't Nobody Here But Us Tickies!!

Despite a chilly wind and threateningly cloudy skies, we did meet our friend out at Condie Reserve this afternoon to seek out some feathered beasties....weeeeellll...there wasn't much in sight today.  Apart from the usual inland gulls, ravens, a couple of junkos and red winged black birds, Canada geese, a couple each of mallard and bufflehead ducks and one mourning dove, none of which were all that close to us and needed binoculars for a clear view, that was about it.

The ticks however have hatched out for the year already. We were quite certain we had at least a few more days before they would be a concern, but no, we were wrong. Fortunately for my husband and I, we seem to have arrived home tick-free, but our friend was less fortunate!  We were sitting have tea and hot cross buns with him and his wife, when he suddenly stood up from the table and asked my husband to check some bumps he started scratching at on his head and neck. Sure enough....the dreaded TICKS!!!  His wife was less than impressed to say the least: "You see why I refuse to go tramping around in the bushes with you looking for birds I can see just by sitting in my own cozy, safe sunroom right here at the house?  You SEE????"

Poor guy; first ticks then a dressing down from his wife, for who I have the utmost understanding and sympathy...empathy even, having tweezered ticks off my mountain climbing husband more than once in my life.

Anyway, that ended our lovely visit as my husband and I raced back to the city to take turns stripping down while standing in the bathtub, turning our clothes inside out and shaking them vigorously into the tub.  We are so thankful we had none upon our persons or hiding in our clothing. My hair has NEVER been so thorougly brushed out, nor my scalp so meticulously checked....I made my husband recheck it with a flashlight as well....but I'm not paranoid, nope, not me!!!

Apart from the ticks and the definite lack of birds that were likely in hiding from the strong winds and the rain that began pelting down as we were looking through the bushes for them, it was really nice to be outside the city.  The Reserve is a pretty place even now before the trees leaf out and the grass greens up.  It was a nice afternoon. Now that we are home, of course the wind has died down and the sun is shining brightly through the remaining clouds. hahahah 'Twas ever thus! hahaha

We are ordering Indian food for dinner.  My husband is not in the mood for store bought ground beef, no matter what my plans are to hide the fact that lean cut ground beef here in SK is so full of fat it is almost as disgusting as the regular cut.....I can't understand his attitude! hohoho  We will be able to avoid cooking tomorrow now as there will be many leftovers!  YAY!!!  I love having Sunday off from cooking!  Perhaps next year, instead of giving up something for the 40 consecutive days of Lent, I could just give up cooking for 40 consecutive Sundays!  Sounds good, right? Of course right!! Watcha' think??

Our Wonderful Kids!

 So happy to have a couple of photos to post from our visit with the son and his girlfriend a month ago.  Also the proud papa! hahaha Could he look any more proud??  Too funny!!

So glad the winter days like this are about over at last!!!

 

Soon it will be time to grow flowers and herbs again! 

When we went to the funeral in our former parish back in February, everyone present was handed a small bag with two tiny seed potatoes in it, in honour of the fellow who had died...an avid potato grower!  My husband put them into a box in the basement where they started sprouting.  They are thriving in a pot of dirt on the basement window sill, so I guess this year we will have a large pot with our own potatoes growing in it out on the back deck. That will be a fun new project.  We have seeded all the herbs, a dozen different varieties, in a seed starter kit that is warm and well protected under my husband's desk in his office.  Our back deck will be covered in edibles for what will likely be our last summer here.  What fun!!  My husband has had good success growing herbs on the deck the past couple of summers so he is pretty stoked to be adding potatoes to the mix! Wherever we end up moving next spring, I hope there is a place to grow at least a few herbs as my husband enjoys that so much. I enjoy reaping the harvest of flavours!!

Better Weather Ahead!!

The smell of the air outside is finally beginning to change. There is still a bit of wintery snow smell and feel to the air, but warmer spring odors are also creeping in alongside.  YES!!  My husband and I are going to for a walk this afternoon, (we each took our separate walks yesterday), so we can enjoy the +16C degree temperature out there.  It is a very encouraging day weatherwise.  The forecast for the next week or so is for daytime highs of +16C to +21C!  FINALLY!  Perhaps the trees will finally start to bud out with leaves. Perhaps the hares out on the lawn will lose the rest of their white fur and turn completely brown. Until they do, the threat of one more snowstorm lingers......

My husband informed me this morning that we had best plan to go over to both Lancaster Tap House and Birmingham's Vodka and Ale House next week "just in case" he has to head to Alberta the following week to help out with his brother in law's care! hahahahaha  He seems to think he needs an excuse to go out for lunch...naaaaahh...if he wants to go out he just has to say so. I think I have said NO to an offer of a restaurant meal maybe twice in our whole marriage, plus I LOVE it when it is his idea.  For decades he was never the instigator of a trip to a restaurant. Guess for me it will be compensation for having our fourth Covid booster next Friday.  There, now I am making excuses as well for going out and having fun...what is wrong with us???  We don't even have a background of old fashioned "catholic guilt" to make us feel we have to rationalize everything we do that is fun or costs money!!  I think that after suffering some times of actual poverty in times past and knowing so many people who felt they had to make us accountable to them (What was with that anyway??) for every penny we spent it, is hard to shake those feelings.

Time to throw a load of dirty clothes into the washer and get going on that walk together!

Rest And Exercise...Practically A Cure All Around Here!

 We are both feeling considerably better after naps and walking outside and decent meals.  The daytime sunshine is also a great healer of body and soul!

My short walk truly was short...probably about seven blocks, but that is okay.  It is a start. Now the need is to have some kind of outdoor walk five days a week.  I took my sweet time to get my leg hardware used to outdoor shoes again and will continue that pace for a week until the hardware adjusts to the slight change of posture and shoe weight.  I paid the price two years ago for getting going too quickly on spring walks and I never want to do that again. I lost almost the entire summer of long walks due to the pain in my hip and ankle. 

Our son let us know that his tests have been changed to later next week.  Apparently he missed one of the many steps required by his American health care plan...a plan he refers to as a "Byzantine labyrinth!"..., but the office manager at the cardiologist's office was as surprised as he was that he wasn't cleared immediately for the tests. She and he spent some time working on the issue today and it appears all will be a go for next week.  If his next three year visa is renewed at the end of this year I think we will assist him in getting an even more comprehensive plan.  Just what he needs these days: more bureaucratic stress!!!  

My husband recovered sufficiently by mid afternoon to spend a few hours working on his course presentation for next week, so he is thrilled about that.  It is amazing how a couple of short naps rarely fails to restore his health and his good humour.  Daytime naps just make me groggy and crabby as a rule, but today I was so tired that having one was actually restorative for a change.

Tomorrow is a wide open space kind of day.  A friend from Alberta may call me, but apart from that I will probably just laze around home.  I stopped along my walking route today at a community library box and picked up five books, so I can take turns reading and watching the many veterinary tv shows I am recording this evening.

A very happy news item here this week: our rent is going up by fifty dollars a month on June 1st when our new lease comes into effect, BUT this week one of our pensions was reviewed and we are getting another $23.54 each month, almost half of the rent increase. God has certainly taken care of us once again!

We had a text from Ray today.  He is starting two series of different treatments as of next week.  One will be twice weekly and one will be once every three weeks. He will also begin taking chemo pills soon and of course will be on those for the rest of his life. Our prayer is that the other two treatments will shrink the tumours sufficiently that the rest of his life will be long and as healthy as possible!!

No Birding Today After All

 Last last evening my husband got a call from the priest who took all my husband's meetings for him while we were away after Mom's death.  The call was to ask if my husband could please fill in for this same priest who is very ill indeed with COVID.  Of course my husband agreed to take her meeting this morning.  

Unfortunately the extra early morning coincided with a poor sleep and my dear husband is feeling very ill himself today.  I also feel terrible today. The removal of so much stress over the estate issues, after two full months of it, on top of the ongoing grief over losing Mom, fully hit me today.  As if often the case when a situation of longer term stress lifts, it leaves me aching all over, as if I have been drop kicked through the goalposts at a football field.  Ouch!!  I can hardly keep my eyes open, I am so utterly exhausted.

So, we called our friend and asked if we could try again in a couple of days to go birding with him.  Depending on the weather of course, it otherwise appears possible for us to go with him this weekend instead.   I hope that works out for his sake as much as for ours because he was so looking forward to it.  Like my husband, it is not easy for me either to let other people down.

Instead, I think I will take an armload of books I am finished reading over to the nearest community library box this afternoon, only a couple of blocks away.  That shouldn't take too much energy and I can take my sweet time walking.  I am in really bad shape for long walks and had better get a move on with some shorter but regular ones if I am going to be able to go with my walking partners this spring and summer.  I feel as old as Methuselah these days!

While my husband led his surprise meeting this morning, I took in our water jugs to be refilled and dropped the four bags of clothing at the Salvation Army thrift store.  That is about all I am going to be able to manage away from home today, apart from my hoped for short walk. 

Hopefully we will both feel better tomorrow.  At least my husband can work on his PowerPoint this afternoon for next week's course....after he has a long nap!  I am tempted to also try to have a nap, so that tells you how miserable I feel. I do not nap during the day.  Well, tomorrow will be better, I am sure.  With the sun finally shining and the temperatures on the rise, how could we not be feeling better by then??!! Right? Of course right!

More Testing

 Just heard from our son. He is now scheduled for an Echocardiogram  and another chest X-Ray tomorrow.  The cardiologist and GP are apparently not quite as settled about all the recent test results as they originally were. So, here we go again, wondering if there is a lung issue. I am too exhausted to be fearful. I will confine my emotional involvement to my talks with God about this new development. Having children who are approaching middle age is far more traumatizing than having toddlers or teenagers! I am remembering being my son’s age and how my own chronic health issues either began or became more apparent then. Again I thank God for the wonderful woman in his life. I am so grateful he is not facing this situation alone. So grateful for praying friends. Dealing with OCD during times of multiple stresses is a challenge. My husband’s CFS is not acting up as badly as we feared it might with him being under this much pressure and we are grateful for that too!! 

Celebration Time!!!!

 "Dancing Script" seems the most appropriate one to use today!  It has been a wonderfully productive day of solving bank problems and my husband and I are grateful to God and to our prayer warriors.  I am very aware of how your prayers have been assisting me in coping with a vicious episode of OCD that arose out of these estate issues.  Bless you all!

I started my day at one bank sorting out a problem with a cheque that went through my account for twenty dollars less than the amount it was written for. So thankful that there are photos of the deposited cheques available for the tellers to look at so they can see the discrepancy and tag the account for the end of the month auditors to catch and fix.  

My husband took care of the other bank's issues.  I was able to go with him after all and glad I did.  We found out from the teller we were with that our financial advisor has been out of the branch on extended leave since shortly after our last meeting with her nearly three weeks ago.  No wonder we have heard nothing back from her, but we did mention that it would be nice if her phone answering service and email account had some kind of mention of her long term absence so others don't have to go through the stress we have been through.  The teller was most accommodating, her supervisor was most accommodating.  We were able to fix one error without having to have signed paper work for the change in the account and we also discovered from them both another error we weren't even aware of. That too was fixed up in a matter of a couple of minutes.  My husband's well honed mediation skills came into play, so between his ability to express himself, (so that I didn't have to try to pull myself together verbally to try to remember what questions to ask), helped us accomplish all the work in record time.  Again, thanks everyone for praying for us.

As far as I know it is now safe to put my estate briefcase into "dry dock" for a few months until Probate is completed.  Thank you Jesus that I have survived more or less thus far despite the OCD issue.

My husband was most disappointed that our time at the bank didn't take long enough for us to be able to go out immediately afterward for a celebratory  lunch. hahahaha  I cannot believe that these days it is HIM who makes the suggestion to go out to eat....OFTEN!  I decided, as I saw his face falling when he checked the time, that there were enough stores in the area of his restaurant of choice that we could do some window shopping and check out a few grocery stores we never go to while we waited for the restaurant to open.  We had a blast toodling about up and down Quance to the various  businesses that caught our interest.  We picked up a few special grocery products we hadn't seen at any of our usual stores and that was fun.

As soon as we could we drove over to Birmingham's Vodka and Ale House!  We have been meaning to try eating there for about the past five years, but just haven't for one reason and another.  Today was a perfect day for celebrating in a new to us location.  My taco salad with spicy beef was one of the nicest ones I have had in Regina.  Far fewer tacos than I am allowed to eat in my carb count, so I didn't have to waste any of their salty deliciousness. There was ample beef, fresh lettuce, NO BROWN LEAVES, diced tomato, red and green pepper and small slabs of fresh avocado to mix with the salsa and sour cream. It was nicely presented as well.  My husband enjoyed his Plainsbreaker burger.  It wasn't spectactularly fancy as many of their burgers are (and we are going to return soon to check some of those out), but it was excellent beef, well prepared and the in house BBQ sauce wasn't all gooey and overwhelming, just gently flavoured and not too much of it. For a side he ordered a bowl of special fried rice that was quite delicious.  I tried a forkfull of it and think he and I will have to share some of that again sometime.  It was a lovely  meal. My husband was feeling rather goofy from his success with the bankers, so since there were few other customers at that early hour, he danced his way out of the restaurant after lunch, more or less in time with the music they were playing. Silly goose....but I was so happy to see him filled with such joy. The state of the world has left him feeling overly  melancholy for several weeks now, so today I rejoiced with him....but I only walked out of the restaurant. hohoho!

Money from one of our son's art sales arrived here today so tomorrow I will deposit that bit of good news into his account.  So, it has been a happy day for the whole family.

Our annual April prairie winds have only arrived in the past three days, about three weeks later than usual. We are afraid that means they will continue well into May and ruin what should be our most beautiful time of year. Mind you, if spring and summer are delayed by a month, does that mean autumn and winter will be too??? Wouldn't that be fabulous???  (Ok, yes, my middle name does seem to be Pollyanna...) At least the sun is shining again today.

Ray and his son are meeting with the oncologist today for the results of last week's body scan and decisions about what form of chemotherapy he is going to have to switch to with the onset of bone tumours.  We both feel ill over what is happening to him and how quickly the disease is changing for the worse.

I am going to go and iron the clothes I purchased yesterday.  It may one day be warm enough to actually wear them???      

Retail Therapy Never Seemed So Good!

 It has been a good day. The sunshine has been brilliant for much of the day, so despite the chilly wind, I enjoyed having a chance to get out a bit in the fresh air...VERY fresh air! haha

I was  up and ready to be at the church for 9am to do the count and take the deposit to the bank. That included about four or five blocks of walking, so that did me good.  

An hour and a half of ironing completed the preparation of the spring and summer clothes I am keeping, but I spent a long time yesterday deciding which clothes those were going to be.  I decided to be completely ruthless: doesn't fit EXACTLY perfectly?  Into the thrift store bag.  Sweaters with picks and pills?  Into the garbage.  Just plain don't like it and wonder why I bought it in the first place?  Into the thrift store bag.  Saved it for years even though it doesn't fit exactly perfectly and I don't really like it anyway but I have saved it for some kind of false guilt reason? Into the thrift store bag!  Aaaaah, it felt so good to cut down my wardrobe so drastically.  I have been inspired lately by the downsizing procedures of a Vancouver Island friend. YES!

My paring down may have been slightly too drastic in terms of number of items remaining, so today I did a bit of shopping.  I haven't done much clothes shopping in the past eight years because I went so crazy when I first lost weight and I have been wearing mostly those items ever since.  Each season I have purchased one new pair of pants and a top of some kind, or a dress, since that intial extravaganza of shopping, but to go out and just look for fun and spend some money just because I can?   Hasn't really happened.

I tossed my husband my cell phone before I went out today.  He said he would mind it for me "just in case" the bank employees finally returned our calls from the last two weeks...of course they didn't and we didn't expect them to....so that I could have an hour or two free from having to even think about paper work or bank frustrations. I took him at his word and spent two glorious hours on my own looking at clothes.  I only got a couple of pair of pants and tops after all that looking and trying on, but it felt so good to be mentally free of stress.  I didn't spend a lot of money, but I feel very good about what I purchased.  Each item fits perfectly and I like each of them very much.  Some items I tried on I really liked...but not on me.   

Such a happy day.  Purolator delivered the probate application papers to the lawyer in Calgary, so that will be proceeding this week. YAY!

My husband made lovely banana pecan muffins this morning.  Yay!

The only small glitch all day was that I discovered a cheque processed through my account in the wrong amount.  The bank put the cheque through at twenty dollars less than I wrote it for....since it was to a law office I need to get back to the bank tomorrow and straighten that out immediately.  I know I wrote the cheque for the proper amount. The lawyer would have told me if I hadn't as soon as I handed it to her.  

So tomorrow my husband will "storm the castle" at one errant bank and I will do likewise at the other. hahaha Banks....money in a sock under the mattress is looking better all the time, hahahaha.

Sunshiny With A Chance Of Normalcy! (see what I did there? hohoho!)

Today has been a very happy day, the best day since last Sunday when we had dinner with our friends to celebrate Easter. It has been a needed kind of day for me.

As soon as we got up this morning my husband took one look at my face and knew I was on the verge of experiencing a day of severe depression, so he immediately suggested that we attend in person church today.  I know it cost him to do that as he is being so very Covid Careful, but I am grateful to him for his sensitivity to know what I was facing today had I been forced to stay home.

The Adult Learning Class was good as always: we studied John Chapter 20 this week and we talked about how John's account of the resurrection spoke to our own hearts.  We talked about the disciple Thomas, how he has been accused by church people in times past of being a doubter, as if a healthy dote of enquiring doubt is a dreadful thing. My husband prefers to call Thomas the Patron Saint of Scientists!  There is a difference between doubt and outright unbelief and there is nothing wrong with seeking evidence toward supporting or disproving our beliefs.  Next week will be the final wrap up of our series on The Gospel of John and then the professor for the course is going to collect our ideas of what we learned in this course and send the ideas around to each member of the class to compare and engender further personal discussion.  I am sorry the class is coming to an end.  Church was also excellent and I was touched that our minister used something I had written to him as an ending to his sermon. Of course he assumed my husband had written it and I am okay with that.  My husband straightened out the misunderstanding afterward, but really all that matters to me is that what I wrote spoke to the pastor's heart and gave him a new direction to explore in regard to the Church as the body of Christ on earth.  Cool!! God uses who he will.

Church friends met with us afterward and we decided it was high time to get together for the special retirement celebration for my husband that we originally scheduled for back in January before a new outbreak of Covid put a stop to it!  Finally the day came. We headed to the Knotted Thistle and everyone but me thoroughly enjoyed their lunch.  I ordered a Caesar salad with chicken and the chicken was very nice indeed. The salad though was not good, a first for me there. I suspect it is because an apprentice cook or on call person was running the kitchen.  It simply wasn't up to their usual standard. The lettuce was brown...almost every piece was brown and stale.  I can't really blame the kitchen staff for that because I am guessing that is all that came in their last delivery.  Romaine lettuce in the stores I shop in is no great wonder of freshness either.  What really spoiled it though was the dressing: there was so much on there....perhaps in an attempt to cover up the brown lettuce....that I was barely able to consume half of it.  Had my husband and I been there alone I would have sent it back and ordered a different meal.  I decided not to today because our friends were so enjoying their meals and positive conversation was flowing freely and with great joy.  Today was not the time to be a complainer.  So, I ate what I could and just enjoyed being out with good friends after such a long wait to have this celebration.  Since our original plan to eat out together, one of our friends has had an 80th birthday, my husband had his 70th birthday and we also remembered with joy various friends and relatives who have died since the last time the four of us were together.  It was a lovely time.

Despite the horrific April winds blowing everything around outside today, the brilliant sunshine and nearly cloudless sky are enough to make anyone feel cheery.  My mood is elevated to a more normal state after fighting off depression for the past few grey and dismal days.  Thank you Lord!  There are several small children out on the front lawn successfully flying their kites...talk about a cheery sight.  I am watching out the window and loving their energy and the huge smiles on their faces.

Health Update from Family South Of The Border

This morning our son contacted us about his appointment yesterday with the cardiologist.  There is much good news,  but our son has a lot to do to help himself return to good health and stay healthy!

While he was at the doctor's office his stress test and other results arrived, so he got the results as soon as the cardiologist had a chance to have a good look at them.  While our son's heart gave him a bad scare, there is no sign of significant damage to his heart at this point. He aced the stress test.  So, the cardiologist is going to do a couple of more tests, based on our family heart history, just to be sure there is no plaque hidden anywhere else that the tests to date have not shown.  (His lungs look okay for now.)

Assuming there is no hidden plaque, our son's next step is to take even more drastic measures than he has been to heal his poor body that he has abused for the past 20 years with his VERY poor diet and lifestyle choices.  He had already started that before he came to visit us last month and the cardiologist assured him that cutting the fats, eliminating as much sugar and sodium as possible, plus total abstinence from alcohol, all for the rest of his life, will be his best bet to continue along the road to healing.   His body will not fully recover from everything that is on the verge of becoming serious, but he can do much toward restoration by himself with very few medications at this time.  

What the cardiologist told him in no uncertain tersm was an echo of what his GP suggested to him a month ago.  So we are proud of our son for beginning to implement those suggestions before he ever had the tests with the cardiologist.  

We are grateful that our son's medical plan covered a visit with this particular cardiologist as he seems to be a very professional, no nonsense type of doctor that got our son's attention and impressed certain facts upon him.  He also has his girlfriend keeping watch over him and he has no desire to kill himself off when he has such a wonderful woman in his life.

Thank you all for your prayers for him.  We pray he will remain committed to all the changes he has been making, since his symptoms for all that is going wrong began at the same time. All his organs can use a good cleansing.  

For now, it is one more burden lifted at least partially off our shoulders and as our son is now starting to feel the initial positive effects of his life changes, he is more dedicated than ever to living properly. Amen!

My Life As A Senior, Captured In A Meme!

 "I came, I saw, I forgot what I was doing, retraced my steps and got distracted on my way back.

Now I have no idea what's going on and I have to pee."

 

Ain't it the truth....thanks Kat for passing this on...so MUCH truth here, hahahahaha!!

Wish I Had A Photo!!

The crazy geese around here are providing no end of entertainment this year. We have several large beach balls hanging from our back deck, the ones with painted eyes that are used to keep birds out of vineyards, that are proving effective at cutting down the number of geese hunkering down to feed and poop along our pathway to the car. For the past two weeks or more we have been down to a group of three regulars who come across that area. Apart from the occasional beaky grab of a few stems of grass on the way past, the three of them cross that path very quickly, honking loudly, bobbing their heads and refusing to look at the beach balls tossing about in the wind. Every few days we change the number and configuration of the balls as recommended by the manufacturers and this little plot seems to be working fairly effectively. It has also worked well to keep them off the roof. I no longer awaken at 5am to the pitter patter of goosies overhead. 

The cutest thing is happening at a nearby neighbour’s. Under her living room window she has several large plastic pedestal flower pots weighed down in place by the remains of last year’s soil. A couple of days ago a female goose embedded herself into the pot, apparently to lay her eggs and nest. Papa Goose is standing guard, bringing her food and aggressively chasing off anyone and everyone who dares to walk past on the city sidewalk. It isn’t possible to get close enough to take a photo or video without compromising the privacy of the tenant in that suite, so we have refrained, but the goose in the flower pot is pretty adorable. Now we pray that neighbourhood kids and pets do not disturb Mama goose and her eggs, nor the goslings when they hatch. Once the spring snow melts and there are more people and animals around outside this pair of birds may discover their nesting place is not as safe as they assumed.

One And One, Etcetera!

 Today we accomplished the final steps in filing Mom's probate papers!!  We met with our own lawyer this morning for Notary Public signatures, scanned and emailed them to Mom's lawyer in Alberta, received approval to send and then couriered them off to his office!  YES!!  One of the two remaining duties still in our court completed. So now we sit and wait for 4 or 5 or 6 months for the Clearance Certificates. No problem!  Waiting is something I can do well IF I KNOW IN ADVANCE I AM GOING TO HAVE TO!  Surprise waits, like the one with the errant bank who again today did not fulfill their promise of a return call, upset me greatly when it is ME who is responsible for correcting the error that caused the need for another appointment in the first place!!  Well, perhaps the Lord is simply teaching me how to wait patiently in circumstances that are new and strange to me.  That is what I am going to take away from this bizarre bank behaviour.  My husband told me this afternoon that we will give it one more try on Monday and if nothing is forthcoming by closing business hours that afternoon he is going to go in person with me to the branch we have been dealing with...or trying to....on Tuesday and refuse to leave until a financial advisor agrees to either see us immediately or at least make an appointment with us for later in the week. We HAVE to get this fixed next week so that my husband is free to go to Edmonton the following week to help Ray deal with his chemotherapy side effects!  Lord willing this will work out without my husband having to do anything drastic, although his methods are generally quite effective...teehee.  

Once we left the courier company, receipt in hand, a rather celebratory mood overtook us both!  My husband said he wanted to have a small party as a treat for finally getting the probate application sent off, so he decided we would return to Lancaster Taphouse so he could have another bowl of their delicious beef stew. hahaha Well, he is like me. When he likes a particular kind of food, he usually REALLY likes it, so away we went! hahaha We arrived as the lunch crowd was clearing out so he felt ok about COVID exposure and in we went.  This time I opted for the pulled chicken street tacos and a small caesar salad.  The tacos were good, but I don't think I will order them again.  They were tasty and well made, so not sure why I didn't enjoy them as much as I was expecting to and the salad portion was ridiculously small for the large price, but it was very tasty, so I don't really mind.  We splurged and shared a sticky toffee pudding for dessert.  It is the Lancaster chef's own take on it and not one that British sticky toffee pudding purists would be likely to enjoy, but we certainly did enjoy it. My husband demolished the accompanying iced cream and Cool Whip and I tackled most of the cake and toffee sauce portion....what a treat.  I was glad then that I opted for the tiny taco meal and salad because it gave me the chance to have a couple of carb units worth of dessert without throwing my blood sugar completely out of whack...only a teensy bit out of whack, hohoho!

When we got home my husband got going on the last of the Japan photos to scan onto our computer files and I got some emails answered, some banking accomplished and a long overdue letter written to an out of province friend, before I vaccumed the upstairs of our suite.  I also finished the last few short chapters of the crime novel I have been enjoying.  I hope it is not too long before my former friend's next novel is ready for publication.  

Good and bad news from friends in regard to illnesses and other traumas.  The bad news is that the young man from church with the brain tumour slipped quietly away last evening and his family is grieving deeply.  Losing a 20 year old son and grandson and brother is devastating to them all, understandably.  I cried when I found out. We know he is in the healing hands of Jesus now, but it is difficult to accept the death of one so young, isn't it?

The good news is from Cee and Nan:  testing for the constant vomiting and abdominal pain Cee has been experiencing for several weeks appears to be due to a large gallstone that showed up on recent tests.  Cee's doctor actually called him at 7am today to let him know and to tell him the name of the surgeon he has been referred to. Praying that the surgeon, as he looks at Cee's overall health issues, will be able to make this surgery happen very quickly indeed!!  Again, Cee and Nan are ever so grateful for all your faithful prayers for them. Their priest has also been wonderful in bringing them Eucharist and praying for them. Spiritual support means so much, especially when suffering is as prolonged as Cee's has been.

It seems spring is not on the horizon quite yet.  Although day time highs will be around +3C to +6C next week, there is a rain and snow mix forecast for late this afternoon with snow overnight, more rain and snow mix tomorrow, then a couple of days of at least some dryness and sunshine before at least 5 more days of moisture. We shall see how accurate that longer term forecast is, but the weather is still not going to be very nice for a long time to come.  Well, at least that gives me a LOT of time to go through my spring and summer wardrobe to do the weeding out project I should have done before I packed those clothes away last October!  hohoho!  

We hope to hear from our son sometime this weekend in between long shifts at work, to tell us how his pre test-results with the cardiologist went today.  I hope the doctor hasn't scared him senseless with all the dire possibilities before the test results even arrive next week.  All of us are already overly aware of what the various dire diagnoses could be....... 

Life In The Fast Lane....Yeah, Right....HAHAHAHA

 This morning I called the bank that I have been struggling with yet again and left another message that we need to make an appointment and why we need to make an appointment. Instead of calling directly to the financial advisor we have been dealing with I called the branch line and the recording said it could be tomorrow before they return my call.  I am surmising that the call will come, after a wait of ten days since I started attempting to solve the issue with the bank, at just about the time we are sitting down with the lawyer to sign the final papers for the probate application.  Sigh....praying so hard the call will come either before or after the lawyer's meeting, BUT it seems God is trying to teach me something more about patience and trust that I have not yet learned....so....we shall see what happens. 

One good thing is that I decided today that I can no longer sit around all day completely paralyzed into inaction just because the worry about this bank issue is taking over my ability to do much beyond making meals and sitting on the couch staring into space.  I got moving on getting this place cleaned up and managed to do all but the upstairs vaccuming,  cleansing the bathroom fixtures and the two small linoleum floors washed.  It won't take me more than 90 minutes tomorrow afternoon to get those tasks completed.  YAY!  So, I did learn one thing today...how to get motivated into action and not allow the OCD issues come to the fore every moment of every day just because the refusal of the bank to respond to my needs has left me feeling powerless.   My husband has been praying for me about this problem and I believe God started answering his prayers for me today.

On the family health front: my husband had a good talk with Ray tonight.  He has been using a walker to get around because of the tumour on his pelvis, but today he was able to get out and do his nearly 3km walk again sans the walker.  He nursed himself through a bad strain on one set of muscles around the tumour and has worked on strengthening those muscles enough to walk better and be pain free again. Good for him!!  He had a scan this week and will see the oncologist for results early next week, then likely chemotherapy will resume right away. If we get this bank irritation fixed up by next week sometime my husband will be free to go and spend some time looking after Ray.

We heard from our son after his huge number of tests today.  The stress test alone took a full 4 hours to complete. Tomorrow he is seeing his cardiologist for a discussion prior to the results appointment which will likely take place either next week or the following week.  The cardiologist wants to go over our family history of heart disease and talk to our son in person about his symptoms before he sees the test results. It will assist him in interpreting the results more accurately. All we can do here is pray a lot for our son's health and for God's protection on his life while we wait to find out what is going on for sure.  Our son has been so tired since the new year, but we can't blame it solely on his long work hours at this point.

The minister at my church is going on a three month sabbatical starting next month and today he contacted my husband to ask if he would consider being on the preaching schedule rotation during that time.  My husband said yes immediately. hahaha  The man tries to act like he is fully retired, but simply could not resist the chance to preach and teach in a new situation. hahaha  I have already ruined our chances for any sort of extended holiday this summer by agreeing to be an offering counter for three Mondays in August and my husband doesn't break from his monthly teaching assignment for the diocese until the end of June, so that only leaves July to really go anywhere. Mind you, with the current state of the pandemic being so bad due to new variants, we may not be going anywhere anyway.  Who knows....??

I am two thirds through my friend's crime novel and really am enjoying it.  It is well paced, there has been no what I call, "murky, muddled bits" where I have felt that the author was going around in circles trying to flesh out the number of pages agreed on with the publisher.  The action has been non-stop but there has still been some time for a bit more character development than some crime novel authors bother to do.

This weekend I will be happy to spend some time watching the first two episodes of Season Two of The Flight Attendant. It is kind of silly, but it is funny and you never know who the "bad guys" really are, who can be trusted and who is going to reveal themselves to be someone other than expected. Kaley Cuoco is perfectly cast in my opinion.  It isn't over the top silliness like David Schwimmer's Intelligence series, but it is filled with the improbable accompanied by some witty comedic twists.  My husband is also slowly reeling me into binge watching several seasons of the detective series Bosch.  It is an action crime series but with minimal action.  The acting is good. The back stories of the characters are interesting. There is a certain amount of realism to the cases being solved.  I came in at the start of Season Three but with my husband pausing the recording every so often to explain who the characters are and how they interconnect , I am starting to get into the series quite happily.

Tomorrow my life is pretty much looked after.  The following day is stretching out before me with no plans thus far.  To keep active and try to avoid falling back into the malaise that assailed me for the past ten days or so, I may either do some laundry or cook something special or, if the weather is at all better than it has been, go for a short walk to start giving the muscles and tendons supporting my hip hardware the idea that they need to strengthen up after a lazy winter. Or I could just stay in bed with the covers pulled over my head and dream of a life of restored calm and a world free from wars and rumors of war....  hahaha.     

I am feeling badly for a family from church.  Their grandson has been struggling with a series of brain tumours for the past four years or so.  He and his mom moved here recently from BC so that they could be closer to a cancer clinic and grandparents.  The young man chose to be baptized about a month ago and it was so moving to hear his testimony. He has slowly been losing motor function recently.  Now we have an email requesting urgent prayers as he is now in ER and non-responsive.  It is heartbreaking. He just turned 20 years of age.  Cancer is no respecter of age! 

I hope you all have happy plans for the weekend.  Three more friends from church are now struggling with COVID, so I suspect we will be Zooming once again into the Sunday morning church service.   

An Excellent Article from The Atlantic Regarding The Fracturing of Modern Society And Its Consequences!

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/

The author is not generally noted for his references to the biblical scriptures, but I enjoy his analogies here between the fracturing of modern America and the fracturing of society in the days of the Tower of Babel.  Hope you also can see some truth in his thoughts.

The Good News Is.....

 ....that my husband's results at his doctor's appointment for his skin lesions were very positive!  There is no cancer apparently, so that is a relief.  He is on a LONG waiting list to see Regina's one remaining dermatologist, could take a year or more to get in, but until she can see him and give him more effective ways to deal with the two separate dermatitis issues, his own GP has given him some good hints to keep them under control.  Now, if our son's tests tomorrow could yield such positive results....

Neither my husband nor I realized we had been "holding our breath" for the past two weeks while awaiting today's appointment, but once it was over and ended so positively, my husband decided he was ravenous. He has hardly eaten in the past two or three days.  So, since it was only just past 4pm and the Lancaster TapHouse would not be crowded, off we headed there.  I am ever so grateful I woke up this morning in time to eat an earlier breakfast (and therefore earlier lunch) than usual, so I could eat dinner at 4:30pm without messing up my blood sugar. hahaha  I had my usual Ronnie Burger with no bun so I could have some fries instead and my husband ordered the delicous beef stew.  We enjoyed every bite!  We felt free to be in the restaurant despite ever climbing Covid numbers because the only other customers there when we arrived were seated at the bar on the other side of the restaurant.  We discovered that EVERYTHING on the menu is 25% off between 3pm and 6pm most weekdays, so I think we may just make Lancaster our go to place when I am allowed to have earlier dinners. I do suspect the food actually tasted more fabulous tonight than it really was because we were flying pretty high over my husband's good news!

While my husband was in the doctor's office I stepped into a nearby clothing store and came out with two tops, two pair of pants and a dress for this coming summer....purchased in faith that we WILL have summer weather at some point in the fairly near future.  While I have not brought up my summer clothes tubs from the basement yet, this morning I did take a cursory glance at what I have been saving and wearing over the past seven or eight years and decided that some of those items have got to go.  Some of those outfits are looking pretty worn out and faded. With the deals I got today on the new items I feel quite justified in doing a few minor spruce ups of my wardrobe.  The only other thing I truly need this summer is a new pair of black sandals, so I will head to my favourite shoe store, Iannone's, next week and see if they have been able to stock any in the midst of the current international delivery problems.

The crime/suspense novel I ordered online a couple of weeks ago arrived today.  I admit I only ordered it because the author is a former BFF of mine from over 45 years ago and I also admit I kept my expectations of the quality of writing rather low, "just in case".  However, I started reading it this afternoon and before I knew it I had read the first 116 pages!!  It is well written and thus far the characters are interesting souls and not the completely one dimensional characters that plague so many crime novels. The first few pages are a wonderful "hook" to reel in readers.  I "just had to know" what was going on and what was going to happen next by the end of the second page!! Thus far there is minimal "cussing and schwaring", a dearth of my much hated "F word" and the fact that many of the places mentioned in the novel are places I am very familiar with makes the background details even more fascinating to me as I picture those locations in my mind.  So, if you are interested in reading a brand new crime novel by a first time author that is really rather good, try "A Shattered Calm" by Bruce. F.B. Hall. According to the liner notes he is working on another novel, so that is good news.  Congratulations sir on your success! 

Still no response from our financial advisor about our request for another appointment to fix an error at the bank. It has been nearly two weeks now. Hopefully she has just been away for some reason, but if I don't hear anything by 1pm tomorrow I will stop trying to contact her directly and telephone the branch office to see if she is away or, as my husband and I are starting to suspect after some things that happened at our last meeting with her, she is no longer working there!  I cannot sit here every day with my phone attached to my body and my iPad on "new message" alert.  It is becoming rather ridiculous, but I don't want to miss a phone call or email from her as I know how long it will take to reconnect.  It will be like starting over and I have a time constraint now to get this business concluded.  The good news in this paragraph is that at least I have a plan that will de-stress me!

This afternoon the snow flurries began again, with a 3pm snowstorm predicted. Once again, despite cold temperatures and winds, we didn't get more than a quick, short lived semi-whiteout in our area of the city and now, just as the sun is beginning to go down, it is shining brilliantly through breaks in the winter grey clouds.  I am glad we didn't get the 6 inches of snow central and southern Alberta got yesterday, we have had only about 1 inch, but that system could still make its way here over the next day or two. It doesn't pay to have high expectations these days of a fast arrival of spring weather.

Our new neighbour continues to be a model of quietness and we are beyond grateful. Hopefully this will remain the pattern for the length of her stay here. She seems to be a very nice person and we are delighted that soon it will be summer and we can do more visiting together outside. Thank you Lord for good neighbours!

 

   

Another Spring (?) Storm!

 The snow is cascading down from the heavens with such a thick blanket of huge flakcs careening around in the wind that I can barely see the buildings across the street.  There is a bit of rain in the mix as well and wow....tomorrow morning the streets may be treacherously icy.  My husband has to lead a Morning Prayer service at 9am, but I don't have to go out until I take him to the doctor in the late afternoon! YAY!

Rah! Rah! Rah! The Cheerleading Never Ends Here!

This week both my husband and my son have important medical tests to determine what their symptoms are symptoms of.  So, I am back to being the family cheerleader.  Hmmmmm.....have I ever actually stopped being the family cheerleader???  Hmmmmm.....I think perhaps not.....

Cheerleading, (on top of dealing with my mother's death, reliving my father's death in the process, all the legal appointments and messes, taking on a new responsibility at church, wondering what is going to happen to Raymond, the ongoing pandemic woes, just every day life), is making me very, very tired.

I slept so poorly last evening when 6:15am FINALLY rolled around I decided to go grocery shopping just to have something to do away from home where I wouldn't risk waking either my husband or the new neighbour by flouncing about cleaning or cooking or watching the tv. 

So glad I did that.  I arrived at the grocery store just as it was opening at 7am.  There were very few customers.  It was so easy pushing the cart up and down the aisles that seem to be getting narrower as more product displays are being put up in them.  Navigating the store was very easy today.  I had two weeks' worth of groceries ready to load into the car in 30 minutes.  I was gone from home for exactly one hour.  My husband wandered downstairs as I was putting the groceries away and was quite shocked to discover I had been out shopping before he even woke up today. hahaha  

As it turns out, it is a good thing I didn't follow my original plan to wait and go tomorrow morning.  A brief snowstorm is scheduled to hit us just after lunch today and the snow will continue to come down for most of the rest of the day. Tomorrow there will be more snow and rain.  AND WOW IS IT EVER COLD OUTSIDE!!  The wind is just as bitter as any wind in mid January, even though the air temperature was only -3C when I went shopping.  My husband planned to walk to his police check appointment this afternoon, but the blizzard will be arriving at about that time, so he will have to drive. The winds are already nearly strong enough to knock people over and the snow storm is still three hours away.

I think that to distract myself from fretting over whether or not one of the bank financial advisors is going to return my phone call today, I will do some housework.  Looking at the furniture and carpets it is becoming apparent I have been too lazy for the past week!

"Challa"lujah!!

 My husband found a wonderful recipe the other day for challah bread.  He loves it but has never made it before. He was so excited to try it that he completely deserted the Passover season's seven days of unleavened bread and made the fabulously beautiful and delicious loaf last night.  Here he is proudly displaying his handiwork:  (YUM!!)

He just had to try it as soon as it left the oven!

 

BEFORE he attacked it with the bread knife!

Still Wearing Snowboots in Mid April? NOOOOOO!!!

 I don't wanna wear snowboots any more since it is mid April, but looks like I'm gonna hafta!!!  Sigh....

The main driving areas and sidewalks are pretty much free of snow since our blizzard last week, but some of the side streets are still suffering from middle of the road and curbside pile ups. Many of the residential intersections are still filled with slush.  Yuck!  We are scheduled for a combination of daily snow or rain or sleet showers for the next few days with an actual straight snowfall on Friday.  Then we have some rain forecast as the temperatures begin reaching tenatively for daytime highs above 0 to +1C.  Good grief...this spring is certainly displaying some of the effects of global warming in our part of the world.  So, perhaps another two full weeks of needing to wear snowboots as I wander about the city.  My goodness!!! No real signs of spring until sometime during or even after the first week in May!!  Here in Regina we seem to be stuck in a permanent weather state of GRUNGE!

Easter Service Hilarity....Only On Zoom For Your Viewing Pleasure!!

I have to admit how happy I am now that my husband was too concerned about Covid exposure to go to church in person yesterday, because if we had been in the church we would have missed out on the hysterically funny tech glitches we got to enjoy on Zoom! hahaha

One of the funniest moments was during the last hymn that was interrupted on Zoom audio by the children’s pastor who, not realizing her mic was still on, was trying to shepherd some of the kids back to their designated crafts area set up on one side of the church so they and the Sunday School teachers would not have to be downstairs in their usual classroom, missing the “attempting to be spectacular” Easter extravaganza. As we were all heartily bellowing “Up from the grave He arose with a mighty triumph o’er His foes.”, we clearly heard the children’s pastor saying, “Dear, you need to stand up and move over there with the rest of the kids and stop punching your friend!!!” The song lyrics and pastor’s comments seem to go hand in hand do they not? Rising and triumphing over enemies in both sacred and secular dialogue. ha! 

The most hysterical moment was right at the end of the service for our annual tradition of inviting interested congregation members up to the choir loft to join the choir in singing The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. It is usually a thrilling musical coda to our celebratory but still somewhat solemn Resurrection service. However, shortly after the mass choir began to sing our Zoom host disappeared from the screen. A few seconds later one of our fellow Zoom participants somehow unmuted his microphone, so superimposed on the thrilling music was the man’s at home telephone conversation with his friend....in high pitched, rapid fire Chinese!  This seemed the perfect ending to an Easter Service gone wrong in so many ways.

Other non-Zoom hilarity occurred when one of the hymns printed on the bulletin was switched out last minute for a different one but no lyrics for the replacement were given out to anyone in the congregation or on Zoom. The choir director was turned toward the congregation and waving her arms with great enthusiasm but with little response after the first familiar two lines had been sung. Only a handful of people knew all the words of the two verses without the help of written lyrics. Whole sections of what was printed in the bulletin didn’t happen at all, and the order of some of the musical selections was changed, rendering the bulletin pretty much useless as a guide to the order of service. My husband and I laughed and laughed. We so enjoyed all the dipsy doodles in the service. 

Even the pastor was not immune from the hilarity. He had invited two of the kids forward to act out the scene from the Gospel of John where the resurrected Jesus comes up behind Mary and she turns and sees him for the first time since he was crucified. Kids being kids, they were not paying attention to what direction they were each supposed to be turning and eventually our obviously frustrated pastor had to take them by the shoulders and physically turn them around in the right directions. When he was finished making his point through  this little tableau and dismissed the two kids to return to the craft area, the little girl leaned over to him and in an injured voice told him, “You didn’t say Simon Says!”, at which point my husband and I totally lost it and laughed to the point of tears!! 

Oh how we enjoyed this Easter Service......for all the wrong reasons! Hahahaha!!!!

Well, This Was A Different Sort Of Holy Saturday For Us!

 I am shaking my head at how different our Holy Week has been this year.  Unreal!

We missed all the prayer services leading to Maundy Thursday and then missed going to Maundy Thursday service as well;  we didn't even Zoom in!  Good Friday we were a little more on the bit as my husband chose to attend a small High Church Anglican service and I went with my friend to a less high faluting congregation.  We both enjoyed the reading of St. John's Passion and some of the hymns were the same in both churches, but I think we each made the wisest choice of where to go for our own personal spiritual edification.

Usually we would be celebrating the Easter Vigil somewhere tonight and joining in with my church for their sunrise service out in the park tomorrow morning at 6:30am before the 11am indoor service, but the weather is too cold and icy for us to attend the sunrise service and we wore ourselves out at home today, therefore are not feeling well enough to find an Easter Vigil to attend!!

So what were we doing today to exhaust ourselves so completely?  We spent Holy Saturday doing our INCOME TAXES!! Sigh.....

In the rush and stress of getting Mom's taxes done properly and early, both of us simply forgot that we had our own taxes to do as well.  A friend twigged our memories the other night when she mentioned her husband had just filed theirs! Aii yii....how much more vacant minded could either of us be???  How can a person FORGET to do annual income taxes??  Duh!!!!

The good news is that due to Covid closures happening on and off last year, my husband's extra income opportunities were practically nil, so his income was significantly reduced.  As a result, there was no need whatsoever to include income sharing or clergy housing allowance as part of our process, therefore no extra forms to fill out, no special housing allowance forms to have to track down from the Synod office, which will be closed all of next week anyway.  For the first time in his life my husband experienced the thrill of having all the documents he needed already in his possession and the joy of simply recording the info from the T4's and such onto his tax forms, adding and subtracting and DONE!  This is more how it will be from now on due to his retirement. If he thinks this year's tax experience was a relatively painless one, I can't wait until next year when it will be even simpler after a year of retirement. 

A tiring day, an inappropriate day perhaps to be doing income taxes, but it was a wonderfully productive day and has relieved more of the ongoing pressures from us.  

My husband also made a pot of fabulous baked beans and bacon.  YUMMY!!  We finished his latest batch of veggie and lentil soup today and now we can tie into those beans!  For someone who claims to be so very tired all the time....and he is....he is accomplishing a tremendous amount.  Before he baked the beans and started the taxes he also did some more cleaning in the basement!!

As for me....apart from taxes, pre baked bean meal preparation and dishes, I did zip doodly doo today. I managed a shower, some hair styling and some garbage disposal, but that is about it!  I have reinstituted my marching on the spot and making circle eight's around the living room after meals, but I can't say I enjoyed that today.  I have lost a scant few pounds in the past couple of months, and tonight I tried on a summer dress I adore, but have not been able to wear for the past two summers.  Tonight I could get it on easily.  I still look a tad pudgy in it, so won't be wearing it right away, but the possibility of wearing it at all will keep me motivated to continue with the indoor exercising and watching my intake of food very closely.  YAY! There is hope!

Tomorrow morning we will Zoom into the Easter service at my church. As much as I wanted to go in person, my husband is having one of his rare "cautions" inside about attending, so I will run with that.  He doesn't stay home from church just on a whim, so if he says he feels we need to stay home, even for reasons neither of us understands, we will stay home!

Later in the afternoon we are going to the home of my walking partner and her family for an Easter dinner: ham and scalloped potatoes and cabbage rolls....YUMMMMMMM!!!! Can't wait.  We were even able to get off our lazy butts after lunch long enough to take a break from taxes, go out and find a gift to take them for the Easter celebration!  My mother loved scalloped potatoes and ham and my dad LOVED cabbage rolls, so this will be a meal filled with happy memories for me!!  HAPPY EASTER!!!

Blessings Of The Easter Season Be Yours!

To all my family and friends in the Lord:

May this Easter season bring a new awareness of what it means to be saved by grace and what it means to literally be "nailed together" in Christian community through the crucifixion of Jesus our Lord.  As we read the account of the crucifixion in St. John's Passion we see that Jesus did not simply, prettily, "unite" us or "bind" us together as his followers. He nailed us together when he was nailed to that blood spattered cross for us.  We suffer, exalt, praise, hurt and enjoy life together because that is what Jesus came to do in our lives as his precious children.  Like all families we have our squabbles and disasters, but we are family none the less, the beacons of Christ's light to the world, representatives of the community of our Holy God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit;  the Three in One.

The Lord be with you this weekend.

The Lord is risen.

He is risen indeed.

Hallelujah!!

Brief Family Health Update

 It has been awhile since we last heard from Ray, but tonight he contacted us. Today would have been Ruth's 73rd birthday, so it was a particularly tough day for his emotions. Fortunately his son took him out for dinner and a good talk.

We are devastated to learn that Ray is having trouble walking now....because the cancer has metastasized into his lower pelvic bone.  Sigh.....he is going for a scan next week to see where else it might be lurking.  The results may effect once again the type and dose of chemotherapy he will be on.  

For some reason we were not prepared to hear this kind of news.  Ray is warming to the idea that my husband should come and assist him for a few days after chemo treatments that are going to have serious side effects as he gets farther into them.  He is definitely going to require more assistance sooner with the spread of the cancer into his bones.  He is to have his next chemo treatment in two weeks. By then we should be completely finished with the legalities of the probate application for Mom's estate and all the bank errors should be corrected. No more signatures will be required for the estate. That will leave my husband free to travel back to Ray's for as long as Ray needs him.

We feel like we have both been punched in the stomach. Why we are so shocked we don't know. Cancer is sneaky and devastating no matter what kind of cancer it is, so the fact that it has spread farther for Ray shouldn't be such a surprise. I guess we were just hoping/assuming/presuming that he could have his original chemo treatments for his lungs and it would help him to last a few more months with some quality of life.  Now?  Who knows..... Thanks for praying prayer warriors.  We all appreciate it very much!

There Are More Than A Few Reasons I Don't Mind NOT Being A Grandparent...Especially Right Now

 I read the following article with a certain amount of sorrow for the plight of this family being written about. Tough times for all.  I am grateful to be old and finished raising my child long before the pandemic hit our world and divided us into opposing groups over how to deal with Covid.

 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/i-m-a-new-mom-trying-to-keep-my-baby-safe-in-this-pandemic-anger-is-my-secret-weapon-1.6405016

Storm Life. etc.

 The snow and wind continue today and will not end until sometime tomorrow, so we are staying close to home! Another pj day for me. I showered this morning, put on clean pj's and will do a bit of tidying up around here today...slowly....allowing myself to be distracted by emails and blog posts and interesting books and tv and conversations with my husband....it is all good!  Five large CATS with their snow blades attached came by an hour ago and cleared the main street in front of our place.  Prior to that the road was covered with deep snow with the consistency of oatmeal that made it difficult for the smallest cars to manoeuvre. We swept and shoveled a very large drift on our back deck and will have to do that multiple times today to keep the drifts clear of our back door.  It was difficult to push it open through the snow this morning.

My husband had a lot of fun this morning Zooming in with his political discussion group. I haven't heard that much conversation and that many laughs coming out of him in several weeks. It was encouraging to hear him having such a good time.

Our son will have his important scans and stress test a week from today.  I have managed not to think about it constantly for the past couple of weeks, but today it hit me rather hard.  Praying lots and trying not to worry.

Today would have been my husband's sister's 73rd birthday.  I am glad my husband had his group meeting this morning to distract him from the onrush of more grief over losing her.  I feel for him. The feeling of shock is still present for us both when we remember she has left us.

My husband is trying to decide whether to make special buns today or tomorrow or Saturday for the Easter celebration: either cinnamon or hot cross buns.  Yummy!  I can't eat very many of either, but it surely would be wonderful to have even one as a resurrection celebration treat. 

We also have to decide if we are going to do our income taxes on Saturday or wait until Easter Monday.  After that we are too busy with myriad appointments all week.  Not the greatest way to spend the culmination of Holy Week, but it has to be done and this is the first time in months we have had this many days in a row without any other firm commitments.  

Easter already....April already.....goodness....grieving and stress take up a lot of time apparently!!! 

It's The Cold Wind That Is Making Life Miserable This Week

 The blizzard conditions began just after lunch this afternoon.  We aren't getting very much snow in our part of the city, but the wind is driving the falling flakes pretty much horizontally.  An hour or less east and south of here the highways are closed in Saskatchewan and on into Manitoba where the brunt of the storm is being felt.  The amount of snow is not necessarily the significant factor for closure, it is the ice forming on the roads with the windchill of -16C and the zero visibility as the blowing snow forms a thick blanket, leaving drivers completely blind as to where their vehicles are on the road.

I have had a productive day once again with the estate.  All the mail I received this morning was for the estate and all but one piece of information was properly addressed to my home, rather than to Mom's now empty apartment.  Canada Post has been doing a very good job of picking up and re-addressing bank statements from banks who don't seem to have the address change I have already registered with them through their own financial advisors. Sigh.....  I have already named names in a previous post, so will let that go for now. If the post office can keep up the good work until they receive the release papers from the the end of the probate process a few months from now, THEN I will ensure they have my address on file for certain so that statements of interest accrued on accounts during probate will be sent here for next year's final tax filing for Mom's estate.

Looks like I can relax for the rest of today, tomorrow and over the Easter long weekend when the banks are closed for any sort of financial planning and estate appointments.  I will begin the last battle afresh next week. Whew!  This is great! Finally 5 or 6 days in a row where I don't have to think about these things.

I have an invitation to attend a Good Friday service with my walking partner this week.  It will depend on the weather and condition of the city streets by then, whether or not she will be able to get to the church, but I think I am going to take her up on her invitation if it is possible to get to the building by car. (Yup, lots of snow forecast to fall between now and then.)

My husband is planning to attend the Good Friday service at the parish where he has been leading the Wednesday Morning Prayer service and of course invited me to accompany him, but I don't think I will go there. The Good Friday service is very meaningful to me on all levels, so I am quite picky about where I attend it.  The church my husband is going to is a bit too high church for me and they use sung responses that are SO dreary and difficult to follow that I can't stand it. The ponderous speed of any services I have attended there in the past few years makes me feel antsy and unable to concentrate on what is going on.  The church I am hoping to go to with my friend is more light hearted in their sung responses, BUT still very properly liturgical in its service.  I don't know if that church will even use sung responses for Good Friday, but I am willing to go and find out. To me Good Friday is the most enthralling of the Holy Week services....the weight of what Jesus did for us always hits me afresh on Good Friday. Why am I not going to my own church for Good Friday service? Well, each year they have an amalgated service with several other churches in their conference. I have attended those for the past two years, or tried to and to me they are a gong show of free church confusion. After last year I said I would not do that again. Easter Sunday resurrection service I will go back to my own church as they seem to have a good blend of liturgy and free church celebration at that happy remembrance service.  Spiritually I am feeling a bit tender these days, so this year I am being quite adamant about only attending services that I know will be edifying to my own soul.  I need refreshment as I have nothing left to give to anyone else. I need to refill so I can start being more of a help to my family and friends instead of feeling like I am too empty to even pray effectively with them.

I am so very grateful that the Brooklyn subway attacker has been identified and arrested. I just pray he was working alone and that he has not given others suffering from mental illness issues any ideas to follow up on his despicable act of violence.  From what I have seen on the media reports about his background activities in the past few years, I feel very badly for him. He obviously lost touch with reality some time ago.  I am praying for him today to get the help he needs. 

It is time to go and sweep the next layer of snow off the front and back porches while I can still get the doors open. Although there hasn't been a lot of fresh snowfall yet, the wind is piling the snow up in front of both doors and soon it won't be possible to open either one of them.