Super Sunday

Today has been a pretty good day.  The weather was perfect this morning to walk to church and back, so we really enjoyed that.  It wasn't too hot and the breeze was only slight.  Seeing friends and hearing a good sermon at church made it a wonderful morning. 

We made egg salad sandwiches for lunch, something we rarely think to make for some reason.  They were particularly delicious with the addition of our own fresh chives and dill and Golden Sun tomatoes!  Yummy!

I drove a birthday gift over to a friend's house after lunch and was able to take an unexpected walk during that process, as I arrived at her area to find all the access streets into her crescent torn up for some kind of emergency repair!  I had to park several blocks away and walk in.  Another short post prandial walk certainly didn't hurt me! hohoho!!

The rest of the afternoon was spent doing  laundry. This miserable eye condition I have been fighting for nearly a month has made me feel rather ill almost since the start, so I discovered I have not done a full laundry in over two weeks!!  Unbelievable!! It felt marvellous to accomplish a catch up on that outstanding task!!  Of course it means LOTS of ironing tomorrow, but that is okay. I like ironing,  

Tonight we are lazing around watching boxing and football on tv and our new fun British murder mystery favourite, "Grantchester".   We enjoy it because each case is solved within each episode, but the characters' personal issues and struggles carry over from one episode to the next.  The "Father Brown" series seems to have run out of new episodes after only about a half dozen that were first aired in Britain at the first of this year...are there more episodes that haven't been accessed by our tv provider?  At this point it is starting the third airing of those same episodes.  "Vera" has disappeared completely from our screens. I know that at least 4-6 episodes were filmed in 2020 and/or 2021, but have no idea if we will ever get to see them.  "Vera" is the best of the lot in our opinion.  If it wasn't an additional cost to us when we really can't afford it, we would subscribe to BritBox I think.  My husband's sister and her husband did for several years and certainly enjoyed the programming.  We get a lot of laughs out of another British murder mystery series titled "Shakespeare and Hathaway".  It is pure sillyness, but the casting is superb!!  Nice to have a bit of humour in our tv murder mystery watching! 

Many of our friends have the most recent Covid variant. Most of them are on the mend, but a couple of them have been and continue to be quite ill.  Kenny springs to mind as one who could use some prayers for healing.  

We received a rather shocking piece of news at church this morning: one of the women we have come to know and love at church visited a liver specialist ten days ago as she was having some health problems.  This morning our minister told us all that she is in hospital and is expected to die any moment.  My husband and I are so sad.  With visiting restrictions at the hospitals and the possibility that she is no longer conscious at this point, we will not be able to see her in person to say our goodbyes. May the Lord bless her with his presence as she waits to go to be with him.

Tomorrow evening we are going out for dinner to to the home of good friends who recently returned from a holiday.  Sharing a meal and a presence together is always so relaxing and fun.  We are looking forward to hearing about their vacation.  It will be like a reward for me after a long day of ironing! hahaha

It is the Saskatchewan Day long weekend Monday tomorrow.  I think a large number of the city's residents went "to the lake", the ubiquitous lake, hahaha, for the weekend.  The grocery stores and other businesses have been dead as ducks for customers, the traffic on the streets is very slight, not even that many pedestrians going past our place the past couple of days. My hair salon was so lacking in customers on Thursday and Friday with no bookings on Saturday at all, that they closed for the long weekend. The stylists were pretty excited when they told me on Thursday during my own hair cut.  Well, soon it will be time for OUR holidays...hopefully before the end of this month!

My eyes are SO MUCH BETTER today that it is as if I never had a problem....almost at least...one giant improvement over this time last week. Thank you Lord!!

Blessings all and prayers from me to you for a happy first week of August!

 

Feeling SO MUCH Better Now!

My optometrist told me that I should notice a huge change in the condition of my eyes on day four of the new medication and she is 100% right!!  I woke up this morning with far less tear streaks running down my face....after three weeks of weeping eyes, that change in itself was nearly miraculous, but as the day continued, so did the improvements.  I am so grateful.  I am really enjoying my two ten minute sessions of having a heated wheat bag over my eyes as well.  It not only makes my eyes feel good, it relaxes my entire being. So soothing, so calming...I may have to continue with that after the ten days of prescribed hot compression is finished!!  It works as well as the expensive gel filled mask I had orginally planned to purchase and the cover bag is not difficult to wash out every evening and hang to dry overnight.  As the day has gone past, the redness of the skin on my lids has settled down and I look less like I have a neon sign around my eyes.  The skin wasn't itchy at all today because there were no salty tears keeping it moist and painful. My eyeballs have returned to a more proper white hue as their bloodshot condtion has healed. This evening I look ALMOST human once again.  Hallelujah!  I have six more days of these treatments and am not finding them onerous, despite needing to do a lot of juggling of times for putting in various eye drops and using the hot compresses.  I am retired.  What else do I have to do, right?

We had a productive morning for a change. My husband has been sleeping better the past couple of nights and I had a great sleep overnight last night, so we loaded up a few more boxes of "stuff" for the thrift store, as well as some "extras" car parts we have never needed nor used since we got the vehicle.  I cleaned out the rest of my costume jewellery....all lovely pieces but I don't wear them any more so why keep them?  I kept a half dozen of the nicer, daintier necklaces and a bracelet and a couple of pins.  I am down to two pair of earrings that I only wear for special occasions....both pair I got from my husband's sister, so they are excellent quality and meaningful as well.  My husband broke down a few dozen cardboard boxes we have been hoarding from the days when we were mailing a lot of gifts to our parents and siblings, but that we will not need now for that purpose. Some of them were moving boxes that have come with us for at least 8 of our 14 moves and they are no longer in good enough shape to be used for the next move.  We saved only a half dozen very sturdy boxes for loading up the many books my husband is preparing to get rid of.  his parents' things and his old tools and climbing equipment will be next. YAY!  Slowly the actual basement space is emerging from behind and below all the stacks of things that have been down there for the past 8 years we have lived here. 8 years of goose poop, leaking basement, crumbling stairs and decks, peeling paint, goose poop, mouse and cockroach infestations, noisy next door neighbours, icy walkways in winter, the new addition of many yapping dogs in our court AND did I mention goose poop???  Since my husband got his dose of financial reality yesterday, he is suddenly very motivated to get going on getting rid of all the unnecessaries.  I am proud of him.  He is finally understanding that we are going to be forced into a major downsizing next year and he is rising to the occasion. God bless him!!

We enjoyed our series of morning errands: loading the car and driving all the items to the thrift store, finding a marvellous discount gasoline station to fill the tank on our car, picking up a couple of grocery items and a some new flash drives, AND a snap decision to go to Birmingham's for lunch!  The server there always remembers us and automatically brings our preferred drinks out without having to be asked.  We are probably the oldest fogies in the place, still masked and sitting at a funny little table beside the juke box that is distanced from every other table in the place.  hahaha  Guess we are the token old folk for that place and we are enjoying the attention we get there....hahahahaha.  It is just nice to be familiar enough to the staff and with the ambience of the restaurant that it is relaxing as soon as we walk inside.  thank you Lord for such a place of social refuge, decent food and reasonable prices!

we had a relaxing afternoon of reading and scanning very old photos of my husband's family. There aren't too many photos left to scan now until the project is completed and all the photos and slides can be disposed of.  My husband thought he was done two weeks ago, but then he found an old suitcase of his mothier's and guess what it was filled with....yup, another couple of hundred family photos, most of which my husband had not seen before in his life. So he has been enjoying scanning them into the system.

I had a haircut this afternoon.  Oh my it feels good to be free of all the clingy, straggly, overly long locks. The stylist cut it much shorter than usual this time as our holiday times will overlap and I will have to miss my usual 5 week cut.  I actually like it better this much shorter. My hair hangs just below my ears now and it will take some time to grow out.  I love going to the stylist.  It is relaxing and refreshing to get my hair tidied up again.  Going there also gives me a pleasant walk to enjoy.

I contacted the lawyer's office yesterday morning to find out if the office assistant could tell me when the Grant of Probate is actually going to be sent on to me.  So, it went into the Express Post mail yesterday afternoon.....my prayer is that even with the Long weekend this weekend, it will somehow get here before we leave for the family funeral the middle of next week.  If the papers arrive prior to our trip I will be immensely grateful.  It will mean I can start making bank appointments again for the following week and getting the next step in the process of closing out this estate underway.  Then the last step will be getting the rest of the information I need to have Mom's final tax return completed and sent away...hopefully before the end of the year, but even if it drags into the following new year that will be okay.  It has to be filed by April, so I am praying I can get all the t4's and bank interest statements by the first of next march...with how slow it was getting t4's this past year, I am a bit anxious about that.  I have the T4OAS already, but have not received a t4Cpp.  I am not sure how long it will take the banks to issue their statements of interest paid out to the various small accounts this year.  There won't be any taxes to be paid, but I still have to provide all the proper paperwork to prove it.  Once I get the CRA clearance certificate after the final tax filing, I will be able to close the estate account and that will be the end of it. Yay!  It is good to know things can get moving again soon. 

One of my dear friends here arrived home late last evening from her holidays so i am looking forward to seeing her before we leave next week.  with Kat Gone too on her holidays I have been feeling somewhat bereft of late. Thanking God we have plans coming up with my walking partner and her husband that will be a ton of fun! Something fun to look forward to. YAY!

We received an invitation to a family bbq happening the day after the wedding of my husband's cousin here in September.  His family doesn't get many chances to be all together very often, so it is going to be a good time.  The parents of the bride are putting it on and we will asssist them. It will be held at the home of the groom, so while he is on his honeymoon, his house will be party central for his new bride's family. teehee..... 

All in all it has been a good day today.  I trust that I will have a good sleep again tonight so that I can get some work done around here again tomorrow.  the weather is just right for me: +30C with a slight breeze and wonderful sunshine!  It is nearly 11pm on this warm summer evening and there are some very tiny kids outside in the parking lot screaming and laughing while Mom and Dad take a giant load of groceries into their suite. hahaha  The little girls are having a blast out there racing joyfully around the parking lot in the dark.  They make me giggle just listening to them.  I hope they don't go inside too soon as I am enjoying listening to how much fun they are having.

  

Ebot's Art Videos

Our son is using a computer programme called Grasshopper in the creation process of some of his paintings.   I love this one, but it is a bit eye goggling! hahahahaha

The Facts Of Life......

 This afternoon I decided it was time to stop burying my head in the sand about how much it is costing us to remain in this townhouse where the main reason for having the basement space is to store our parents' old "stuff" and other things we really do not need to keep.  Paying for on site storage is no longer affordable for us on an ongoing monthly basis.  

As I have watched the amount of our monthly fixed income dwindle this summer, with reduced sales tax rebates and the unexplicable loss of our GIS supplements as of this month, the fact is that we are now spending 54% of our monthly fixed income on rent and utilities.  Sigh.....we knew it was not a good percentage, but have tried to ignore the truth since we are stuck here until the end of next May to the best of our knowledge.  My husband has willingly donated, from a gift from his sister, the extra monthly income we need to maintain our accommodation until then so that I don't have to use my designated "fritter away so we can stay sane" fund from my mom's estate to use for monthly payments. God bless him!!!  We cannot understand the drastic drop in our GIS supplement and harmonized sales tax rebate because our income and other tax information for this past tax season remained almost identical to the previous year's information. However, that is how it goes sometimes. Trying to find out why is going to be an exercise in frustration, based on other times we have tried to find out reasons for changes in pensions and quarterly rebates, so we are just going to suck it up and do what we need to do to get ready to move next year. My prayer request is that my husband will SOMEHOW and by the needed MIRACLE be ready to make the drastic downsizing decisions he has to make in lots of time to keep next year's move from being frantic and stressed and miserable.  He has so much trouble letting go of things.  He is such a sentimental man, struggles with regrets over letting old photos and family knicknacks go....I am SO opposite of that, so I am trying to remain patient, but something is going to have to give over this next winter.  Thank you for praying for him too. He needs the support to be able to make the changes.  Oh Lord, help us both to access your grace in the months to come......Amen!

Having admitted the above, the positives for today outweigh what I just wrote!  The weather was absolutely perfect today: warm and sunny without being brutally hot, just a hint of a breeze and a few clouds on occasion to keep the sun from beating down too strongly.  I LOVE days like this!

We had the opportunity to go to DarBar for lunch today with friends from church.  They drove to our place and then we walked to the restaurant...a nice long walk there and back and because we have been walking more again over the past couple of weeks, we were able to keep up with our friends' pace.  The meal was excellent and they enjoyed their meals too. It was their first time there, but they eat Indian food at a couple of other excellent venues, so they knew what to ask for on the menu and what degree of heat they wanted added to their food.  The conversation was excellent too.  We talked about everything from the Napoleonic Wars, to the amazing wines of Portugal, to her former career as a small animal veterinarian, to the discovery that some of our old friends from Alberta are actually cousins of his! What a great time.  I was able to bring enough leftovers home from my lunch platter to have for my dinner tonight...bonus!!

So far I have heard nothing from the lawyer's office regarding their plan to send the Grant of Probate to me this week, so I am guessing it is not going to happen now until the office assistant returns from her holidays at the end of August. All it really means to me is that we will have to move our September trip back into August and we are just as happy to do that anyway at this point.  I am so done with the stress and worry.  Once the Grant finally arrives, all the bank appointments needed to complete the estate procedures will get done when I am good and ready to do them.  I have reached the limit of how much stress I am going to continue to take on over this whole disaster.  Amen!  

Kat is going to try to come over for a short visit this evening. She is leaving for her holidays tomorrow.  I am always happy when my friends have the chance to get away for a break.  My husband and I SO enjoy going away ourselves and our opportunities are limited these days, so we can just be happy for other peoples' travels instead! 

My eye condition is slowly starting to improve with the introduction of the new meds. Thank you Lord!!  Thank you praying friends.  By early this afternoon I was aware of a positive change in symptoms beginning to happen.  It would seem the doctor's hope that I would see a major change for the better within three days is going to come to pass.  Let it be!!  With the end of the constant weeping of fluid from my eyes the skin on my eye lids will finally have a chance to heal, the blood shot condtion is easing, so I will look less like I have been on a month long bender and I will be able to remove my sunglasses when I visit with people.  I left those on today from the time our friends arrived to go to lunch until after they went home.  They have enough class not to ask me why I was wearing sunglasses in an already darkened restaurant. God bless them both!! 

The Laws Of The Universe At OUR House! HOHOHO!!

 Today has been interesting and it isn't even noon yet! hahaha

My cousin phoned again this morning to ask if my husband could choose a Scripture reading we think would be appropriate for Auntie's funeral next week.  Also, would I be able to read it? Auntie had written an order of service for her funeral, but neglected to put in her choice of Scripture.  It will be a pleasure to assist in this way.  The Laws of the Universe at OUR house dictate that when there is a funeral in either of our extended families, the fact that my husband is an ordained, licensed clergy means he or we WILL be participating in some way in the family funerals.  It is a nice feeling to know we are capable of helping out.  This funeral we don't have as many duties as we have had in times past, only to read the eulogy and a scripture and to be  stand by pall bearer should there be an insufficient number of healthy younger nephews in attendance.  We are pleased to be asked to help out where needed.

In today's mail a speeding ticket arrived.  It happened a couple of weeks ago when my husband was driving his friend around seeking gardening supply stores and was not paying close enough attention to the speed zones as he gawked about trying to locate a particular shop.  This is what happens too often when I am not with him helping him with the speed zones in areas of the city that are new to him.  hahaha  (This is HYSTERICAL laughter mind you.....)  The Laws of the Universe at OUR house mean that when I attempted to pay the SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLAR fine online, due to confusion about how to fill out the online payment form, this school zone speeding ticket has now been applied to MY driving record instead of his.  Sigh....I only have two speeding tickets on my driving record from all my years of driving and now the second one isn't even actually mine!!

Dad blasted Laws of the Universe at OUR house......hahahahahaha waaaah waaaaaah waaaaaaaah......

A Bit Of An Honour!

 My husband took me to The Tap around noon today for their all day breakfast...a large plate of three slices each of greasy bacon and ham, two slices of buttered Texas toast, three rounds of heavily salted and seasoned hasbrowns, along with a couple of eggs.  It is a grease and salt fete that we don't allow ourselves to have very often, but today it tasted fantastic. We enjoyed every heart attack inducing morsel. YUM YUM!!!  Of course I can't eat that many carbs at one meal, so my husband has a take out box of leftovers that he can have for dinner tonight if the beef I am thawing isn't ready for cooking on time.

It was quite a challenge to get to the restaurant!  One road we tried to take was so blocked by traffic waiting for a train to cross the track, that we actually pulled out of the lineup and finagled our away around the pile up of cars to locate another route. Then along the main and unavoidable road on the trip, we came to another pile up of cars.  Turns out the lights were out at the busiest four waym double turn lane intersection along that route, so we had to treat it as a four way stop. Even now, there are a few folk who don't quite understand the concept and we witnessed a couple of near accidents that would have been caused by people taking their turn in the wrong sequence.  We opted for another route altogether to come home and only had to contend with several kilometers of a low speed zone for road construction along that route. hahaha  Well, it kept us both awake having to pay such close attention to the traffic! hahaha

As we were finishing our meal and paying the tab, I suddenly had a strong urge that we must leave the restaurant immediately.  The urge was so strong that I actually felt a bit dizzy!  (No, it wasn't from the greasy delicious food, no it was NOT!) My husband decided he had better take over the driving just in case my dizziness was going to make me an unsafe driver.  We had barely pulled away from the parking lot and started the drive home when my cell phone rang....a RARE occurrence as no one but a couple of relatives and banks have that number.  I am so grateful I was not driving, because I had my hands free to pull my phone out of my purse and answer it.  The call was from my two cousins who are planning auntie's funeral!  They asked if my husband could read the eulogy!  He is delighted and so am I!  It was important that we have an answer for them right away as they were in the midst of preparing the service with the funeral home.  When they couldn't reach us at home, they called my cell right away so they could get the info to the funeral director and pastor immediately.  My auntie always had a soft spot for my husband because he not only led us into a bit of international missionary work, he also became an ordained minister.  She was an old fashioned missionary who spent 3/4 of her adult life in Nigeria and missions were her heart!  So, he is feeling pretty honoured right now.  (In case anyone is wondering why my husband would be asked to participate in the service rather than myself, her actual niece, it is likely partly because there are so many cousins of my generation that to ask one over another could created some upset in the family. Auntie had MANY MANY nieces and nephews from the marriages of her five sisters.) Once the phone call ended I realized I wasn't dizzy any more and I have been fine ever since.

So, next week we get to take a brief road trip!  YIPPEE!!  It will only be for about three days at most, but it will be a change of scene, a chance to reconnect a bit with some of my family members that I really have no relationship with for a number of reasons, so I am very excited. Thank you Lord!

It WOULD Have Been....

 ....my parents' 69th anniversary today were they both still alive.  I wonder if I will ever get over marking their birthdays, anniversaries and dates of death in my mind.  So many things have been going on lately that I would have loved to share with them.  I am glad in a way that my mom died before her last remaining sister, who died yesterday.  Had Mom outlived her it would have left Mom feeling completely bereft, even more alone in the world.  Auntie has been not quite on this planet mentally for some time now, but would still have some cheery conversations over the phone, as facilitated by my cousin, once a month or so.  If Auntie wasn't sure who my mom was, that was fine with them both, no worries, at least it gave Mom some comfort knowing she still had one of her five sisters left.

I had an excellent appointment with my optometrist today!  She put dye into my eyes, looking for fissures and other damage to the cornea and behind my eyes, she flashed lights and puffed air into my eyes, she had me reading charts and wow, she spent a LOT of time talking to me to get the history of when this condition began, how long it has lasted; incredibly thorough!  She was able to put my mind at ease about this possibly being the precursor to shinges once again.  It isn't this time!  Hallelujah!!  All the tissue around my eyes and on the surface of the eyeball are inflamed and weepy.  Apparently this likely began with a light case of conjunctivitis, but although the medication I took for that a couple of weeks ago did work on eliminating the infection, I now have an extreme sensitivity to that medication!!!  So, I will pick up a prescription for some other medicated drops from the pharmacy later today. Ten days of those should calm the inflammation. I have already begun taking Omega 3 fatty acids and will purchase a gel mask for hot compresses that I will do twice a day for ten minutes at a time until this episode is over.  I have a new regime for eye lid hygienic care as well. This is, unfortunately, a condition associated with severe dry eye that I will be facing for the rest of my life.  It is completely out of control at the moment so it will take some work to rein things back in and restore my eyes to normal.  The report will be sent to my ophthalmologist and he will call me later this week to let me know about the other more serious condition he is concerned about.  So, by the end of this week I should know if my new eye care plan is all I need to put into place.  I am looking forward to picking up the new medication from the pharmacy later today.  Thank you Lord that thus far there is something I can do to help my red, swollen eyeballs and lids!!!  Thanks to those of you who are praying for me.  My eyelids are completely raw from the salty tears that have been seeping over them for the past two weeks.

I met a lovely young family from Africa in the waiting room at the eye clinic, bringing in their absolutely adorable two year old, Barbara, to see the doctor about a swelling beside one eye. Turns out it is an insect bite, but Barbara was not impressed by the doctor's ministrations and let him know it in no uncertain terms. As he prodded at the swelling she let out an indignant squawk that could be heard, I am sure, throughout the clinic! hahaha  I ran into the family again over at the pharmacy and Barbara was much happier, having conned her dad into letting her out of the car to dance in the parking lot while her mother was shopping.  hahahaha  What a cutie....two hours it takes her mother to complete all the tiny braids in her hair.  I am glad I got to talk to them briefly a second time.  I would love to learn their story of living in Canada and how they are faring over here.  

We had some rain overnight.  It wasn't forecast, nor was the rain that is trickling from the clouds right now. I was hoping to walk to the grocery store to get some milk and maybe I will put on my proper walking shoes and rain coat instead of letting this bit of rain fool me into thinking I should take the car and be lazy!! Yes, I must do that...NOW, before I get fooled, right? hahaha

Happy "Kids"!

I am very happy that Ebot and Hani are beating the New York City heat this weekend as they spend three days at auntie's summer house on Long Island.  Ebot is grilling chicken and peaches on the bbq and Hani is taking a much needed break from her busy job as well.  The New York Times review of the play she produced was somewhat lacklustre, but at least there were some positive comments and the play got noticed! 

 

 I agree with Oscar Wilde that it is better to receive a negative notice than not to be noticed at all. (not the direct quote, only the spirit of the quote)  The less than completely positive review will likely effect ticket sales sufficiently that the current run may not be extended, but plans are now underway to tour the play next year in other cities.  I am excited for  Hani and Ebot is so proud of her. Ebot is also getting some of his own works together despite the busyness of his current position.  Here are a painting and a sketch he has been working on:

Ebot is enjoying working on mathmatical equations to translate into his works of art.

 

My husband had a terrible sleep last night.  He decided to remain at home this morning while I walked to church.  What a wonderful time to go walking. There wasn't much of a breeze, the sun was shining but it wasn't overly hot, the birds were peeping, there was little traffic. The trees are still green and beautiful.  I so enjoyed it. Coming home after an hour of post service visiting, I cut through a couple of parks that were filled with gorgeous blooming plants....such amazing colours of flowers: pinks and reds and purples and blues.  I have no idea what most of the plants are, but it was lovely to see to them blooming so profusely.

My eyes began acting up again awhile ago.  As I was washing dishes after lunch I realized my vision was clouding. Sure enough, looks like I have now picked up a case of conjunctivitis.  The only two walk in clinics open today have no more walk in appointments open, so I am stuck until the morning. I am supposed to be going for my eye assessment just after 8:30am but I can't walk in there with pink eye!  Drat!!!!  This is so frustrating.  The ophthalmologist is expecting to have the assessment notes by Tuesday morning to go along with the tests I had done at his office a couple of days ago.  I don't suppose there is any point in going to the emergency at the hospital as I will be sitting in there until midnight waiting to be seen, if anyone can see me at all.  So, it will be a night of hot compresses and extra eye drops to try to flush some of this infection out. Sigh.....this is most disappointing!!!  Well, I have just found the leftovers of the medicated drops I was issued when I had conjunctivitis two years ago and it hasn't quite reached the expiry date yet, so maybe I will give that a try.  Drat!!

My dear auntie who has been failing quickly over the past week passed away at 4am today.  Now I am waiting to find out when the funeral is going to be in hopes that I will be able to be there. My husband is willing to come along for the drive and it would be nice if we could be there to honour her kindness to us over the years.  A few days away would be nice for us as well.  IF my dumb eyes will just cooperate....Lord willing.....

Dear Husband: What On Earth Is Going ON???

 I am getting quite a kick out of my husband's choice of favourite entertainment these days!  He has never in his life been a fan of any kind of professional sports, not even of so-called amateur sports competitions like the Olympics due to the politics going on behind the scenes that make so much of those competitions unfair to many of the athletes.

However, as of last autumn, i have seen quite a change in my husband's preferred television programmes!  MY HUSBAND is watching CFL Football!!!!  He is watching every televised game, every weekend!!!  EVERY GAME !!!   EVERY WEEKEND !!  I am in complete shock!  All our married life he has disdained professional football as a blot on civilized society.  He has refused to watch the games, to discuss the players, to learn the rules of the game....flat out zero interest unless he was criticizing everything about it!!  

Today he has been watching two different games that took place on Thursday evening and that he recorded so he could see every minute of both games today.  Tomorrow the Roughriders are playing with their third string players due to a COVID19 outbreak among the first stringers.  The game was supposed to happen today, but has been postponed until tomorrow afternoon.  I THINK they ar playing Toronto, but I am not sure as I don't follow football at all, despite watching the occasional roughriders' game if I have nothing else to do that day.  My husband has the PVR all set to record it so he doesn't miss a moment of the game.

I don't know who this man is who is presently sitting on my sofa, so engrossed in the game he is watching that he is completely oblivious to my presence and to hearing some important information I had to tell him a few minutes ago. He eventually realized I had something to tell him, so magnanimously paused the recording until I said my piece, but I know it didn't sink in and tomorrow he will be asking my why I didn't tell him about it before!! hahahahaha  Retirement truly does change things!!!! hahahaha  I can't believe my husband is turning into a football fan, complete with actually remembering some of his favourite players on various teams....aiii yiiiii!!!!!!

Tonight we went to DarBar for dinner.  We went early before the restaurant became more crowded by the later evening patrons.  We ordered beef curry, mango chicken, yellow dal fry and fish pakoras, along with buttered naan. The fish in particular was fabulous....so soft and moist in its coating of thin and crispy batter.  Delightful!  We have leftovers for lunch tomorrow after church.

Tomorrow evening after dinner we are attending a summer patio party for church members and invited guests.  It is simple fare for a summer evening: coffee and tea and juice and a variety of desserts.  It will be the first patio party since the summer of 2019!! Thank you COVID for taking that from us as well.  There are only a couple of patio parties happening this summer, one in July and one in August, but hopefully by next summer we can double that number again.  When I first started attending the church, while my husband had his own priestly ministry elsewhere on Sundays, the patio parties were a wonderful way to get to know the people in my church and for them to get to know my husband, as he was usually absent from their services due to his own committments.  The patio parties were responsible for developing the level of committed friendship we have with a number of people.  I have missed them.

Monday is my appointment with the optometrist and the wait begins for the expected arrival of Mom's Grant of Probate.  I am, on the one hand, anxious for it to get here so  I can get into the next battle of the banks and get it over with, but on the other hand I am dreading that battle and just as happy to wait a bit longer!  hohoho!!! 

Today was a perfect summer day for me:  overcast skies, a slightly cool breeze and a daytime high of only +19C.  I loved it! This morning I walked to a grocery store to pick up a few things that could have waited until after the weekend to purchase, but i wanted so badly to get out for a walk and I need a destination to motivate me to go walking alone these days it seems.   I am praying and hoping my husband will be awake and ready to walk to church and back with me in the morning.  

This afternoon I moved a small cabinet upstairs from the basement. It is one that my husband built for my parents and we brought it back here after Mom died.  I have been using their other, larger cabinet in our tiny dining room, but it really is too large for the space and interferes with my being able to open the bottom doors in my other two large cabinets as it has been sitting between them.  I would like to give that cabinet away to someone as it is looking almost new, but am still looking for someone who can use it.  It is too nice to be thrown away. If all else fails I will take it to the Habitat For Humanity refresh store.

Time for sleep!! I want to be ready for my early breakfast and morning walk.  What torturer decided that our church should meet at 10am in the summer?  TEN AM!!!  Way too early for this old gal!

Done Like Dinner....Thank The Lord!!

 I have just arrived home from the last of three appointments with the ophthalmologist's techicians.  What a lot of racing back and forth across town.  Thankfully a couple of the other offices in that building were closed today, leaving sufficient spaces open so that parking for once was not an issue there.   Hallelujah!!!  The tech said that if everything tested out okay today, along with a good report from my optometrist on Monday, then all I would have to do is keep my next scheduled appointment the end of next January....my hope as well, but we shall see what transpires next week.  Just glad to have the weekend off from eye "stuff" and silly, unnecessary, stupid even, probate issues with a couple of banks. They are just going to have to take a chill pill and wait for me to actually receive the Grant of Probate from the lawyer, Lord in your mercy next week, and then they can fight with me all they want! This weekend, I am putting all my troubles aside, concentrating on the blessings from God I have also received lately and just enjoy life!

My cousin phoned me last evening to say that the death of my one remaining maternal auntie is expected any day now.  She stopped eating, drinking and taking her medications over a week ago now and is not able to communicate any more.  I pray that her dearly beloved Lord Jesus will take her quietly and very quickly. She had a wonderful ministry in Africa and here in Canada and has never feared death. Her confidence is in the Lord and always has been all the years I have known her.  I cannot help but wonder if, in whatever happens to us in the "afterlife" prior to the final resurrection, there is any form of consciousness.  Is my mom aware of the presence of her sisters who went before her?  Will my auntie be consciously received by them all with joy on "the other side"?  The Bible isn't clear what happens between death and the final resurrection other than to assure us that " ....we are well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord."  2 Corinthians 5:8  I hope if there is a funeral that it will be at a time when we are able to attend it.  My auntie was good to me.  It will only be a 5 hour drive there, so I hope I don't have some kind of medical appointment that will interfere once the time comes. It would mean a great deal to me to see my cousin and some other family members that I haven't seen for a very long time.  From my mouth to God's ears....

It has been cooler this afternoon. The breeze is chilly and wonderful and the clouds have taken over the sky in the past hour.  My husband had a walk to the university library after lunch and enjoyed it very much.  (He gave in to his food cravings and made fabulous cinnamon buns last night, so I suspect this walk was his way of repenting!!! hahaha)

I suppose I am going to have to spend tomorrow getting going on removing all the dust that has blown in over the past week from us having our windows open all the time.  Since the carpets were properly cleaned last month, the dust has not been nearly as big a problem despite what has been blowing in through the windows.  The other night we pulled the grate off the air returns in the walls and I washed them thoroughly while my husband ran the vacuum hose down through as many of the vents as he could reach into and sucked up a lot of dirt.  These are all jobs that management is supposed to do each year, but they don't do it now with the maintenance staff reduced by over half of what it was when we moved in.  Thankfully we do know how to do these types of things ourselves.  I am grateful for that.  The geese have returned in droves in the past couple of days, but they have mostly stayed off the back lawn where we rehung the big beach balls that have all the eyes painted on them and colourful streamers glinting down from their bottoms.  This huge gaggle of geese is new to our property apparently because they freaked out immediately upon sight of these predatory appearing beach balls blowing around in the wind from the back deck.  They raced back to the front lawns, where few of the tenants ever go anyway, and there they have remained.

Aside from housework I am plotting the best way to get my husband to take me out for lunch on Sunday after church AND on Monday after my eye assessment testing. teehee...... I suspect I will have little trouble twisting his "rubber arm"!!!  

What Doctor Still DOES This?????

 I had a bit of a surprise at 8pm yesterday:  my ophthalmologist called me to check up on my eyes and see how they are doing!!!  I don't think I have had a doctor call me at home after hours to check on me for any reason since sometime in the 1990's when I had an attack of vertigo so terrible that I passed out at the clinic after my husband carried me in to see a doctor there!  My blood pressure dropped so low and I was so incoherent that the doctor stopped in at 7pm at my house to make sure I was okay.  It was highly unusual even then, let alone now....in the midst of COVID and the extremely high patient load per doctor here.  I am more and more impressed with this ophthalmogist's dedication to his patients.  Wow.....talk about feeling blessed!!  He told me the reason he was sending me to my optometrist for the eye assessment next week rather than doing it himself, is because he is tied up with eye surgeries until the day after my assessment appointment and since he knows my optometrist and trusts her abilities, he passed that off to her with confidence.  This kind of care blows me away.  I am a bit less blown away by the problem he is concerned I may be dealing with, however there is no need to get into that unless it truly is the problem.  For now, I will go ahead with my glaucoma and peripheral vision tests tomorrow, the assessment next week and then once my doctor has looked at all the results, his office will be in touch with me.  I feel like I am being taken care of very well. Thank you Lord.  

Today has been a grand day!  I went for a long walk with a friend after breakfast, before it became overly warm outside.  We were able to walk underneath many large shade trees and it was pleasant.  I have been able to pick up the pace just a tad this week so that is encouraging.  After lunch I walked to prayer meeting...only about a half hour walk, but again, there was a great deal of shade along my route, so the hot sun was no problem.  I was very pleased to note that I cut at least 5 minutes off the time of that walk, over the full half hour it has taken me for the past two meetings.  24 minutes today. There is hope......

My cousin called me this evening with some sad, although not unexpected news.  The last of my mother's five sisters, aged nearly 97, is not doing well and is expected to go to be with the Lord imminently.  She spent 40 years in Nigeria as a missionary and lived a very, very full and active life until very recent years when she went to live in a long term care facility. Even then, she was lucid and still able to play hymns on the piano until only a few months ago.  She is more than ready to go, but it will be very sad for the rest of our family....oh dear Lord....another loss to absorb!  She sent us some support when we were on the mission field ourselves and was so proud of us, so excited to have yet another niece "on the field".  She was very kind to me and I have always appreciated that.  

My husband today told me that he is becoming very excited now about being retired!  Today he was quite tired after planting trees in his friend's yard a couple of days ago.  He woke up quite early this morning and realized he had no committments at all, rolled over and went right back to sleep for another hour.  Once he woke up for the day, he spent a long time clearing out old computer files and discovering notes he was making several years ago on a theological research project that got set aside due to the busyness of ministry at that time.  He is very excited to rediscover his notes and has plans now to complete his research and write the paper he hoped to write a long time ago.

Last evening we sent Hani a gift certificate from an Alberta tea shop my husband orders tea from on a regular basis.  They have a type of keemun tea in their store that Hani discovered she loves when she and Ebot were visiting us this spring.  It seemed appropriate to send a small congratulatory gift for the opening night of the play her company is performing....an offbeat version of Chekhov's The Seagull.  Today is nail biting time as she and the rest of the company await the New York Times review....DEAR LORD LET IT BE POSITIVE!!!  She doesn't have high hopes of a ringing endorsement from the jaded arts reviewers on staff, but there is always hope, right?  Whatever happens, I pray that ticket sales will remain high.  Oh how I wish we lived closer to NYC so we could attend a performance.  Ebot sent us some photos last evening of some of his latest paintings and sketches, as well as some photos of the two of them being silly.  He is feeling very far away once again and knowing the present difficulties of trying to fly here for a visit is not helping him at all.  Work is very busy for him as well and his stressed out boss is difficult to "wrangle" at the moment.  However, that is part of his job and he is doing the best he can to maintain calm and organize the work.  One of the newly hired crew at his boss's studio has just been diagnosed with COVID, so our prayer is that Ebot will remain healthy and not be a carrier to Hani.  They have both been very careful, so it is a shame to have this exposure. O Lord, hear our prayer.......

I suppose I should get going to bed significantly earlier than usual tonight so that I am well rested and prepared for the peripheral vision test late in the morning tomorrow.  I am having more success in not dreading that test than I have in the past. Praise the Lord!!     

Wow! Talk About Service!!

I had a good sleep last night despite listening to more than 15 hours of teeming rain and rumbling, crashing thunder. The flashes of light from the lightning were so brilliant that, had I not been so very tired, they would have kept me awake most of the night.  Apparently Kat was awake in the middle of the night and was praying for our basement not to flood.  Her prayers and ours were answered wonderfully well.  Apart from a couple of small trickles that were easily wiped up this morning with towels, the rest of the re-sealing and other drainage aids my husband put into place over the past few years held well.  What a relief. Thank you God, thank you Kat and thank you other wonderful praying friends!

Earlier this morning I received another call from the tech at the ophthalmologist's office. The doctor reviewed yesterday's notes on my present eye condition and gave me a couple of more suggestions to help relieve any remaining symptoms. He has also ordered a full vision and eye assessment from my optometrist, so I will see her on Monday morning. Once he has her assessment and the results of the tests I am doing in his own office on Friday, he will be in touch about next steps.  I am delighted.  A possible diagnosis and help to recover are on the way it seems.  Thank you God and thank you praying friends.  I am feeling better than I have in a week, all because there is now action on the medical front. Why didn't I remember to call the ophthalmologist last week when this problem initially began?? I have to get over being so out to lunch since my mom died....this is ridiculous!!  So grateful though that help is now on the way.  Now I will be able to enjoy our dinner out with friends this evening.

Getting Off My Duff And Getting More Proactive!

Last night when I went to bed I told the Lord that if my eyes were not completely healed and whole by this morning I would call the ophthalmologist and at last try to get some help for whatever is wrong with my eyes.  They weren't so I did!

I had a lovely talk with the tech in charge.  She listened to every symptom I have experienced in the past week and agreed that going to an unknown physician at the walk-in clinic on Saturday would not have been the best thing, so I felt vindicated about staying home instead.  She recorded everything I told her in the notes she will give to the doctor, then advised me to keep my scheduled three appointments for this coming Friday. She said if my eyes are not in good enough shape by then to take the tests, she would take some x-rays, etc. of my eyes and sinuses and see if anything could be discovered.  I told her I could manage quite well until then, as I am certainly still far better than I was all last week, so unless the doctor thinks I need to see him before my Friday appointments, we will leave it at that. I feel very good that I finally talked to someone who seemed to know what I should be doing for now and who will take some tests to try to figure out what is going on.  

I felt so relieved after that conversation that I pulled myself together, got showered and dressed and headed out to do a big grocery shop!  It is the first time I have been out of this suite since the middle of last week!!  I had such a good time bebopping about to five different stores, that it was difficult to have to return home afterward. hahaha  The result of going to so many stores is that I was able to get everything on my somewhat lengthy list!  YAY! That will be it for another three weeks, apart from a bit more dairy and fresh produce next week sometime.  

The temperature is a good six degrees cooler than it has been, so that is a bonus.  Already in mid afternoon I have a couple of windows open and a fan running to move the air.  It is glorious!  The heat certainly does flatten me!  Today the sofa in the living room is going to wonder where its large load has disappeared to! hahaha  

I have loads of energy compared to the past few days!  Shopping made me tired, but not so tired as to feel like I can't do anything else today, so a bit of housework has also been accomplished.  I got some pasta for dinner and some ground turkey to cook with it, some fresh petit pois and the fixings for a caesar salad, so we will have a decent dinner tonight. On the mend....at last....yay!  At least if my eyes get worse again, I know I am going to be getting some help by the end of this week. Thank you Lord!  It has been pretty scary....a lot worse than I have described the condition in this blog as there is such a thing as TMI with health conditions, right? Thanks for praying. I know the prayers have accomplished much. Today I can see and with far less fog to peer through! I could actually see well enough to drive today!  AMEN!!

Making Sense Of Dollars and Cents!

 And so it continues,  this provision of God for us each month!  hahaha I was rather miffed when I discovered a rather large reduction in our quarterly sales tax rebates for this next year, as you read in an earlier post.  Then yesterday I discovered the great news of our quarterly Climate Action Incentive rebate that will be arriving in the same months over the next year as the sales tax rebate.  With the combined total of the two rebates we are actually ahead of just the sales tax rebate alone by about  seventy dollars.  That money will go toward the rise in our communications bill now that our landlord company is no longer paying for our basic tv services.  We will still be a few dollars behind on our original static monthly bill payment budget, but only by about thirty or forty dollars.  That is doable and if not as gasoline and grocery prices continue to rise, all we have to do is cut back on our other entertainment or lose a few tv channels we would enjoy keeping but can live without.  So, all is well as usual!!  Thank you Lord!!

This week we received an invitation from dear friends to go along with them to Vibank SK in August for a special dinner out. They have booked us the full scale bbq menu offered by an amazing little restaurant called the Grotto!!  How very exciting and a wonderful excursion to look forward to.  We are hoping to take them to DarBar later in August.  They may prefer Caraway Grill after all...as I am not certain what is happening with ownership and management at DarBar these days, (a few minor changes in the food the last 2 times we were there, although nothing serious....yet....), but we will check it out ourselves again soon and then decide if it is still worth inviting other people to accompany us there.  I would like very much to initiate something fun with this family as they have had so many good ideas over the years of things to do together and my husband and I are very uncreative and slow as far as making plans to have any fun.  Might as well admit it, we are complete duds any more...what has happened to us in the past five or so years?????

The Calgary Stampede ends this evening after a full ten days of events.  Why does that matter to ME you may be asking?  Watching the review of each day's rodeo events and chuckwagon races is something my parents and I enjoyed doing together over the phone each night of the Stampede for many years.  As a kid it was one of the happiest things we did together every year, making at least two trips down to the fair grounds each Stampede season.  My parents loved the Stampede and spoiled me rotten each year with the crazy junk food, going on the rides time after time and playing whatever games I wanted to enjoy. Dad always managed to find a way to talk the carnies into giving me a big stuffed animal to carry around all day, whether or not I actually won anything.  I was always dressed up in a square dancing dress, cowboy hat and cowboy style shoes, so I guess cuteness counted when my dad would go to bat for me.  The earlier in the day he was able to convince the carnies to give me prizes, the less money he had to spend. hahaha  Christmas and Stampede week were the happiest times of every year for our family. It was very strange to me to not have to watch the rodeo and chucks this year, so since today is the final day of the event, I have recorded both things and will watch them tomorrow in honour of my parents and the fun times we shared every July.

My eyes:  this morning when I woke up they were in about the same condition as they were yesterday....much, much better but still a way to go to be fully restored.  Just before noon I felt an allergic type of tingling in my sinuses and let out a couple of mighty sneezes!  Those seemed to provide some more relief to my eyes.  Later on in the afternoon my nose started dripping the way it usually does in this townhouse when I have been exposed to a few days' worth of allergens and mold from not having been able to go outside often enough.  My nose hasn't been able to drip for the past week! So, now my eyes are about, I would guess, 95% restored.  I am praying and asking God to complete this healing by mid morning tomorrow. If he does then I will know I can refrain from having to call the opthalmologist about  what to do about the condition and I should be able to go for my regularly scheduled test appointments on Friday at his office.  It is one of those "triple threat" appointments where the fluid levels in my eyes is tested at three different times throughout the day to look for hereditary glaucoma and it is time for the dreaded peripheral vision test again.  I will see what happens tomorrow, but I am hopeful to be finally over this weepy eye, blocked duct business.  Unlike the similar event that happened in 2020 I have not been at all nauseated during this blockage. That has to be good, right?

While I have been doing absolutely nothing here at home during our three day heat wave, my husband has been an absolute gem!  He has been preparing meals for himself and letting me putter about putting together simple meals for myself, tidying up various messes, taking care of covering and uncovering windows as the sun moves around the building taking the relentless heat with it, watering the herbs out on the deck, giving me some time alone to just read and watch tv while he helps a few friends with their gardening....I feel extra spoiled this weekend.  I am learning that the only way I can deal with ongoing heat is by truly doing absolutely nothing all day long.  This time I have not had any headaches, no upset stomachs, no aching muscles like I usually do during even short heat waves like this one.  I am so very grateful to my husband for taking care of me so I can feel well in this townhouse that has no air conditioning.  Thank you Lord for my good husband!!

We went to church on ZOOM this morning.  Wow....it was so difficult to hear the murmuring voices of people in the in person congregation visiting together prior to the service. I wanted so much to be there too!!!  Thankfully though, my husband and I were able to watch the service together and enjoy what we could.  Maybe next week we will be able to return in person ourselves.

A friend from church wants to go for a walk later on this week if my eyes are indeed better, so that will be something to look forward to. Thankfully she is only free in the mornings, so since it will be hot enough in the afternoons...although supposedly about 8 degrees cooler than this past three days....I am very grateful we can walk earlier in the day.  

Tuesday evening we should be at the steak house for dinner with other friends, Lord willing. I am keeping focused on that  treat, in faith that it will actually happen, that my eyes will not keep me at home.  

 

A Fascinating Book!

 If you are interested in reading a fascinating book, I would recommend “The Secret Life of Puppets”, by Victoria Nelson. 

Her account of the origin and history of the entertaining wooden beings we and our children enjoy today is interesting all on its own, but something that grabbed my attention is her assertion that our modern Christian society has generally accepted the move away from the world of the supernatural as an accepted and expected part of our daily spiritual lives and relegated that part of our lives to the realm of the psyche, displayed through the working of our imaginations into the realm of literature and fantastical ideas that we create ourselves. She lays the blame for this now centuries long move away from the kind of supernatural miracles seen and experienced by the God’s people of biblical days, at least partly at the feet of the Reformation, when fleeing anything conceived to be particular to Roman Catholic practise was paramount. The Roman Catholics had their holy relics and stories of miracles that were part of what the Protestant Reformers shunned. Over the many years since then, many Christians have also shunned the possibilities of true miracles still occurring in our present age. So, in a sense, the Reformation, for all its good intentions, has resulted in Christians of some persuasions putting more trust in their own ability to reason than we should. My take on what I have read so far is that it seems we have fallen into the same trap as the humanists in that sense, putting our own minds and ability to reason on a pedestal never meant for them. The part of our minds that are created to enjoy the supernatural workings of God have been diverted only into fiction and fantasy that we ideate ourselves.

My explanation if what I am reading is not doing the author justice, but if you are up for an excellent philosophical and theological read from a slightly different angle of approach, I would recommend this one.

Weeeellllll.....Hmmmm........

 I woke up this morning with my eyes about 90% better than they have been for the past week.  They have remained about that much better for the entire morning and the granulation that seemed to be in my tear ducts every time I massaged them all week is nearly gone.  My sinuses are draining normally once again. 

SOOOOO.....apparently some prayers are being answered and I thank all of you who have been praying for me.  SOOOOO, I am not going to go to the walk in clinic today.  I am imagining standing outside the clinic door in the nearly +36C for nearly half an hour with a bunch of other ill, sweating, unhappy patients,  so that I can be in line early enough to actually be seen, then whiling away my time inside the waiting room for as long as two hours because the improvement in my eyes will bump me down in the triaging process.  There is no Covid, but if I am starting up another round of shingles I was two days late to receive the shingles onset meds anyway by the time I realized that is what I could be facing.  So be it....

Into my fog bank of a memory, at 6am, crept the remembrance of my ophthalmologist's comment at my January appointment that HE is now my primary eye care giver and that ALL eye issues should now come to him first.  Duh!!  I could have called his office back last Monday....duh!!!  Of course shortly before I saw him my mother died and there has been a lot of stress over the estate due to banks not wanting to follow the probate laws, etc. etc. etc. and so anything that happened for the first two months of this year has been mostly forgotten.   Since I am supposed to be having my twice a year eye tests next Friday, I will call his office on Monday and explain the situation and repent of not having thought to call him sooner.  Aaaaargh!!!  Your prayers for me are SO appreciated, you have no idea how much I value the care and concern so many of you have had for me in this past six months of stress. Bless you all!

More friends with serious COVID symptoms....there are so many cases in our church right now that we will not be attending in person for a couple of more weeks at least. So grateful the services are still on live on ZOOM and on the website later on Sunday afternoons.  At least we don't miss them.  It certainly has been lovely though being back there in person, so tomorrow morning will be difficult emotionally.  We have missed seeing our friends so much during the past couple of years and I am disappointed that we must take another break as another wave of variant, B.5, is hitting our city pretty hard.

We are in the midst of a 3 day heat wave with daytime highs of +36C. (Praying so hard for Europe and the British Isles as they contend with even higher temperatures than ours and are suffering so much as a result.)  Next week is looking far more bearable here with daytime highs of "only" +27C - +29C and perhaps a few rain showers mid week. Here's hoping....it isn't cooling down at night all that much either. My husband has put heavy cotton sheets over the east facing windows, over top of the blinds that are the wide slat variety that don't need curtains over them as a rule for privacy.  Having those sheets up has really cut down on the radiant heat that was previously emanating all day from the sun heated carpets and furniture.  I am glad it is summer, but these brutally hot temperatures are difficult for me.  I am thankful though that we are not facing three feet of snow and -40C!!!  I will take these hot days any time over that.

Life is good, just a bit frustrating and confusing at the moment.  This too shall pass.  There are other happy things also going on in life.  Found a special treat in the bank this morning....a provincial government Climate Action Incentive rebate that we will be receiving quarterly for the next year.  What a happy surprise!  Friends have been calling to check up on us, there have been some wonderful prayer times on ZOOM and in the past few days, whatever family news we have received has all been positive and happy.

God is good. All the time!

Oh Please....Not Again!!

 For the past five days I have been struggling with blocked tear ducts in both eyes....ala 2020 when I suffered with the issue for nearly six weeks with no medical intervention.  I am concerned this blockage, so much like the previous one that morphed into an 8 month battle with severe head shingles, may lead me down a similar pathway if I don't get some help.

In 2020 the problem occurred just as I arrived in Alberta, three days after my father died.  Due to the exteme lockdown situation at that time early in the pandemic, I could not get a doctor to see me in that province. Therefore I had to grin and bear it for the time I was there.  Back at home here, no one seemed to know what the issue was because the doctors at my local clinic were not seeing patients in person either, but telephone consultations were an ineffective way to diagnose the problem or be given any effective medical assistance.  Other attempts to be seen by a medical doctor locally also failed.  After nearly six weeks the "weepy eye" portion of my shingles symptoms had gone away and the next horrible phase of symptoms were well underway.  Due to the scarring I still have above the eyebrow where the worst of the pox-like rash showed up, there is now some question as to whether or not it was actually a bout of shingles, or a recurrence of a type of pox I picked up in Tokyo twenty years previously.  Whatever....it was a wild and crazy ride that I don't care to repeat.  My own doctor left for a month of holidays today, so on Saturday I will head to the walk in doctor at the clinic to see if there is anything to be done about my teary eyes.  Is it a tear duct blockage, a sinus issue resulting in a tear duct blockage, or both, or neither???  Sigh....I don't want to spend another summer battling illness.  I am going to have to take an at home COVID19 test an hour before I go over to the walk in, to prove this whole thing is not COVID related, in order to be admitted to the building.  With the new variants, apparently eye issues and infections can now be among the symptoms.  My husband will get me a test kit tomorrow and I pray that this wretched virus is not involved after I have been so careful with masking and distancing in public spaces.  My husband and I are among the last half dozen parishioners to continue wearing masks to our church services and we never even enter or leave a restaurant without them glued to our visages. 

In the meantime I continue to massage my tear ducts with a warm, damp facecloth 6 times a day and stuff my nose full of mentholated over the counter meds.  Each treatment seems to help temporarily, but over all there has been little improvement.  Gosh....I really detest this limbo of not knowing what to do to help myself with this.  So....here's hoping for either healing in the next 36 hours so I don't have to go to the clinic, or for a negative COVID test and a doctor who knows how to diagnose and solve the issue.  

I am feeling positive and encouraged, not discouraged, but just a little bit uneasy due to the bad memories from The 2020 Episode!

It was a beautiful day today!  The sun was shining and it was just a few degrees cooler than yesterday...a very few, but that did make it easier to cope with the heat.  I had a chance to go out and get a few groceries early in the day before there were more than a handful of other customers in there.  I am quite certain this recurrence of blocked tear ducts is not COVID but I didn't want to go shopping around other people and I picked a grocery store where the clerks still wear masks of their own and still stand behind the plexiglass protection panels.

Today was Parking Lot Line Painting Day, so we all had to move our cars out onto the street between 8am and 4pm.  We moved ours last evening just in case we both slept in, but we needn't have bothered.  I was on my way to the grocery store early enough to beat the painting crew by a whole 90 minutes.  Next week the maintenance crew will be entering our suite to change the furnace filter. By law they are required to change the filters every three months, even during the summer when the furnace has not been used since the end of the winter season.  How many never used filters are being wasted?  The safety issue is understood, but my husband can't stand the waste of these filters. So, he removes them before the crew arrives with the new ones and next winter he will double up the filters on the furnace. It helps substantially with filtering out the dust in this place.  I appreciate his efforts. It helps my winter asthma considerably, as well as reduces the amount of dust on the furniture.

Speaking of dust, it is time to clean in here once again.  I have had all the windows open all night every night since summer began, so there is a lot more dust built up on the furniture than is joy producing!  haha  Last night half the city was awake during a booming, crashing, light flickering lightning and thunder storm, but I couldn't force myself to shut the windows as it was so wickedly hot in here.  It didn't cool down overnight much at all.  I shut off my floor fan and some other small appliances that could draw the lightning, then sat in bed watching the lightning and trying not to jump out of my skin from the loud cracks of thunder.  Four hours of storm later, it finally moved on elsewhere and I got a couple of more hours of sleep.  There is no wind tonight once again, so while it is cooler than last night at this time, it is still humid enough to make me wonder if we are in for another series of storms overnight again.  Last night at bedtime I could smell the coming rain, but that beautiful odor is absent thus far this evening.  I do love watching the storms, but sometimes they can be pretty intense here on the prairies. At least there was no Tornado Watch last night. YAY!  

So tomorrow is another day with no plans but trying to take good care of my health....I get SO tired of times like this. It is just ME ME ME every minute of the day...how boring that is!!!  I am staying close to home in case I end up having to take the COVID home test on Saturday and it shocks me by coming up positive for the virus.  If it does turn out to be positive, that will be the end of my plans for Sunday church and the church patio party that evening, as well as a long postponement of our scheduled dinner with friends early next week....Lord in your mercy.....amen. 

Grateful For Even The Small Answers.....

 I got a nice answer to prayer in today's mail.  When I discovered at the end of last week that my bone specialist's office had forgotten to send in the request to continue my Exceptional Drug Status for my Prolia injection,  I assumed it would be at least a few weeks before I heard back from the Provincial Government medical services about whether or not I would still qualify for coverage.  However, someone must have put a rush on it somewhere along the line, because today I received the letter of acceptance....only two business days after the request was sent in.  Not only am I grateful to God and the prayer warriors he has given me for the quick repsonse, AND the continued coverage, but I am thrilled beyond measure that my coverage has been extended to July of 2025!!!  I had to look at that date three times before I believed it!  This is fantastic and most unexpected news.  I have had to reapply every year since I began the medication 6 years ago.  Thank you Lord!!!

Now, Lord....if you are so eager to provide me with answers to my own medical issues, isn't there something more you can do for Cee in the next little while? I am asking in all honesty and sincerety if you wouldn't help him out just a little bit in the coming days.  Please Lord...in your mercy, hear my prayer, and the prayers of Cee, Nan and all their prayer warriors.  Thank you...in  you oh Lord do I put my trust.....amen.......

The Old Ways Are Sometimes Best For The Old Woman!

 When it comes to my ironing, I have revamped my methods, going backward to the way my mother prepared ironing when I was a kid!  "Newer" has NOT been "better" for me for this task!

I love ironing, truly enjoy doing it, but I have been kind of frustrated by it the past few years.  My newest iron has worked the most effectively and my old iron is now used when applying fabric starch to some of my cottons, BUT even the new iron is simply not as effective on those cottons as I would like it to be.  The reason is that on all modern irons the water reservoir simply doesn't hold enough water to do more than one or maybe two items at most before I have to refill it.  The plastic cover on the reservoir viewer is tinted brownish orange plastic and I cannot for the life of me see how much water is left in the iron without having to wave it around under the ceiling lights, or move closer to the window for more waving about.  It is most annoying to have such poor close up vision any more, but that is how it is. 

SO I have returned to days of yore and am much happier and less frustrated with the ironing process:  I am wrapping my clean, semi-dried cottons in a damp towel for 24 hours before ironing and I have made a sprinkle bottle for myself, since they are no longer sold in stores.  I found a 12 oz. plastic bottle, looks like a ketchup carrier for a picnic pack,  with a wide neck and screw on lid. I filled it with water, poked a series of small holes into the lid, screwed the lid on tight and can now shake water directly onto any wrinkled clothing that requires more assistance in getting some of the nastier wrinkles ironed out. I don't even have to fill the reservoir in the iron by using this method, just put it onto the highest heat setting, grab the sprinkle bottle and iron away to my heart's content!  Presto!  Happiness!!  I am enjoying my iron a lot more now too since I don't have to worry about filling it with water every few minutes!  The sprinkle bottle dowses the wrinkles most in need of the extra moisture much more effectively than any spray nozzle I have ever had on an iron.  The iron itself is quite wonderful, but especially so since I adopted the ancient method of ironing damp clothes!  I should have done this twenty years ago!!

It is a beautiful day today!!  The sun is shining warmly, but it isn't beastly hot outside....or in my suite....so I had a lovely walk to the clinic and back for my Prolia injection.  I walked mostly under the shade of some ancient tree branches, dodged the spray from the water sprinklers here in our complex, enjoyed looking at the cloudless sky....it was glorious!  My doctor was in fine fettle today, despite being a half hour behind to start her afternoon of patient care.  She is leaving for twenty-five days of holidays very soon and is excited to be returning to her home country to see all of her family. She asked me to pray that she and her husband and all her family would be safe during their time together....from COVID and from rampant crime in her home country.  Added to the constant threat of cancelled flights and all the other vagaries of international travel these days, she admitted she is a bit stressed despite looking forward to seeing everyone. Fortunately for me, when she pulled up my chart, she failed to notice that I have not gone for my lab work yet since my annual physical a month ago....gleep....I just want to have until she returns from her holidays to give my new meds a chance for a proper read out on how they are working, as well as try much harder to keep my blood sugar in line....and maybe lose a few pounds?  Since I have no symptoms requiring immediate attention, I feel okay to wait.  I want a chance to try on my own to get everything back under control with my various physical ailments before we have to have  The Talk about more meds for any of them!

The past couple of days have gone well for getting some home chores accomplished and some walking done with my walking partner...one of those people who is such a good friend that we never run out of things to talk about!  She has been a real encouragement to me this past couple of horrific years. What a gem!!  She is so understanding that I cannot walk very fast right now and seems to have no trouble slowing to my pace. God bless her!!  Now that the one change in meds recently has eliminated the constant stabbing pain in my thighs, our walk around the lake seems to be much easier and even more fun than it was before. YAY!  YAY! YAY!!

I am having fun this week arranging a dinner for a group of Baptist friends who have had us over to their homes SO MANY TIMES in the past few years, but who I know are a bit leery of coming over here for dinner. They are older and have mobility issues, there is no parking for them in our lot and even if there was, the walk over the bumpy grass to the porch stairs, having to go up a full flight of stairs to our washroom and surviving the summer heat in here...well, it is just all too much for them.  So we are taking them to a very fancy, old fashioned steak house restaurant instead.  It is going to be so much fun.  We will likely go next week in hopes it will be a bit less hot for eating a big dinner.  Whatever, if we end up eating salads instead of big steaks, due to the heat, I don't care.  I just want to do something nice for these most generous and loving people.  It will be such fun.

I am requesting once again, some intense prayer for Cee! For those of you who are praying for him, and for his wife Nan, things are becoming desperate for him health wise.  Recently he had a 43 (FORTY-THREE!!!) hour session of excruciatingly painful neuropathy!  The nine Tylenol 2's didn't help, the hydromorphone he finally ended up getting in the hospital ER eventually helped, but there needs to be a reason diagnosed for this problem!!!  He has had all manner of tests, but the one that has the most chance of giving a diagnosis, has not yet occurred!  The specialist seems unwilling to order it for some reason and it is the kind of test only a specialist can requisition....Cee's GP agrees it must be done, but hasn't the authority to order it.  SO, another battle may be looming with the neurological specialist who mostly seems to specialize in dragging his heels!  Cee' s energy, his ability to eat, to walk even with his walker and wheelchair, are all so low that Nan is becoming frightened about the future.  I am at the point, reading her emails and texts, that I feel that God is really the only hope Cee has in getting this final test that should tell the doctors what is actually going on and perhaps getting him some help.  Nan is becoming a full time care giver and she has her own health issues to cope with.  So....please continue to join me in prayer if you can for this loving, kind couple who are under such stress and are quickly losing hope.  Thank you so much!

I am very happy that it is almost time for my women's group to meet again this week!  I heard my husband at his Zoom meeting for his men's group this morning. He was alternately chuckling and "waxing eloquent" about some kind of theological position he has been studying lately.  He sounded so happy. Now that we both have a weekly group, I don't feel so left out!  We both love our groups and get a lot out of them each week.

My husband is having a nap, but has informed me that he is planning something delicious for dinner tonight...sounds like I am not going to have to cook! YAY!!!!  Yesterday we had a long talk about the fact that we are kind of stuck here until the middle of August or so.  We talked about the many day trips we could take, a possible few days in Grasslands National Park this month in between medical commitments....we talked and talked and our conclusion is that if we are being completely honest with ourselves, there is nowhere in this province we have any interest in paying the cost of gasoline to go and see.   I know many people will be horrified that we have no interest in Grasslands, but we are both admitting more readily these days that since we are not biologists, there is nothing that exciting to us about the prairie scenery or its ecosystems. There, confession done!!  There are many interesting prairie sights in Saskatchewan....and we have seen many of them and now we don't care to see any more.  So....we are going to spend our time free this month planning more dinners out for our friends and taking walks around city parks that interest us more than even Grasslands, because there are actual tree lined paths to walk on, flowers and  large plants abundant....GREENNESS!!! All that is missing are ferns and mist for our happiness out of doors to be complete. (Why o why Lord can we not afford to live on the west coast, our place of happiness? hahaha) So, now I am anxious to find out what my husband has planned for dinner!  Wake up o husband....lay thine afternoon slumber aside and let me in on this secret of yours!!!

Also, choosing the appropriate LABELS for each post is driving me nuts, so you may see a lot of posts labelled with "etcetera" or "life".  Sorry about that.

In other news, the July Sumo Tournament in Osaka has begun!!  YIPPEE!!  Thank you NHK for your faithful postings of each day's events!