Happy Halloween! 🎃

We are among the majority of tenants in our complex who do not participate in the door to door “Festival Of Being Held Hostages For Candy” event. The first three years we lived here we did hand out treats, but since we were among the few here who did and our numbers dropped from 13 the first year, to 7 the second year, to 2 the third year, we quit at that point. 

Tonight the participating children from our complex experienced a double whammy: on top of there being so few distributors of treats here, forcing them to travel to other, more generous home owners in the immediate area and beyond, rain began to fall at about 4pm and didn’t let up much until after 7pm, effectively ruining candy collecting for many of the teeniest tots. 

Just before 5pm I became aware of a small commotion occurring outside my front door. A new immigrant mom and her three children were going door to door in the complex, were finding few people handing out treats, so all four of them were getting discouraged. The commotion I heard outside was the youngest boy sobbing because he couldn’t understand why no one was answering his persistent knocking on peoples’ doors. Thanking God we had some newly purchased fruit bars in our snack supplies, I grabbed a handful and raced outside to give them to the kids. Fortunately the little boy was able to stop crying then. I explained the situation here to his mom and pointed out the nearest streets where the kids could come up with a more lucrative haul. She was most relieved to hear there were houses close enough to take her three small children to have a happier experience of their first Canadian Halloween. 

That family was the only family that made any attempt at ringing doorbells here. I really hope they were able to have a good time once they left our place!  👻 

Now That We Are In THAT Age Group......

 ....it seems the disquieting news from friends and family continues coming in!  Sigh....tonight my husband's long time hiking buddy and best friend since the 1960's called us to let us know he is going into hospital for prostate cancer surgery in about 8 weeks' time. It is a new form of laser surgery and he feels like a guinea pig being used to test it out. He is still recovering from a head injury/brain bleed he sustained while skiing about 9 months ago, only recently was able to get his drivers' license back and now THIS happens.  My husband is very upset.  

Talking to his brother in law just after the phone call from his friend did nothing to make my husband feel better.  Ray is having some pretty horrendous side effects now from his cancer treatments, including neuropathy in his fingers that is so bad he can barely play his saxophone at this point, or even use the keypad much on his computer.  His memory is starting to fail and he is pretty discouraged.  Mid week this week he will be seeing the oncologist once again for some more test results.  He has pretty much decided that if the tumours are growing again he will likely decide to discontinue treatment and let nature take its course.  He is ill from side effects too much of the time and that isn't going to change as long as he is in treatment.  He has given his son Power of Attorney and is already discussing the possibilty of MAID for himself after seeing the hell his wife went through in 2021 when she was dying from cancer.  

It has been a bit of a depressing evening around here.

However, we are determined to grieve these sad situations without letting it depress us unduly.  We are just at THAT age where there are more losses accruing...most of our peer group will not be seeing the birth of any more grandchildren as their adult children are the same age as or older than our son, so the size of their families has been decided...no more babies apart from the occasional great grandchild.

Wow, I had no idea so many friends and family could be in such distress all at the same time....incredible!  At "THAT age", the realization of our earthly mortality is brought into focus with far greater clarity than when we were younger.

Peaceful And Content....the Near Miracle Continues!

 I should be ironing clothes right now, but instead I am reflecting on my weekend and how much peace seems to be entering my mind and heart lately thanks to consistently praying friends and family.  Prayer DOES make a difference, even during times when it seems like it is doing nothing at all.  I continue to slowly learn that.

It has been a happy and sad weekend all at the same time.   The happy part began yesterday with the signing of the Letter of Direction at one of the two remaining banks and I will check that bank later this week to ensure the funds they have been holding have indeed been transfered into the estate account.  On the way home from the bank we were able to stop in at an organic grocery and pick up a couple of items my husband needed and some healthy Hallowe'en treats for our neighbours' children here in the complex.  I really enjoy giving them treats, although we do not hand out treats at the door any more.  All the kids do their best to act surprised every year when they get their treats from us, but they know those treats are coming and they get pretty excited having them a day ahead of time. hahahaha  One little cutie had something even more exciting than Hallowe'en treats to tell me about when I delivered her treat bag this afternoon:  "You know what?  You know what????  I get to be the teacher's helper tomorrow!!!!!"  

Exciting news indeed!!!  hahaha  I am happy for her.

On a very sad note for us:  the youngest son of lifelong friends passed away yesterday.  Young is a comparative term. The "young" fellow was nearly 60 years old, but we have known him since before he started elementary school. My husband used to live with his family in college days.  This dear man was a career criminal, but often good to us and to our son. He had a very hard life and spent most of his adulthood in prison.  It would be easy to wash our hands of him I suppose as we were also not immune to suffering consequences a time or two of his criminal activities, but we loved his otherwise soft heart and we suffered right along with him and the rest of his family each time he tried to straighten himself out and failed.  A very few years ago he turned his life over to Jesus and experienced a very real transformation in his life.  What a relief to know that he is now being cared for by the Lord and his intense round of long term illnesses, surgeries and physical ailments are at last at an end.  May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

This morning we heard of another loss of a fellow we have been praying for over the past few months, a brain cancer victim whose sister is one of my closest friends here in the city. It is her little brother and she is taking the loss very hard.  Having no siblings myself I can only imagine what she is going through.  It is the second sibling she has lost in the past 3 years, both of them younger than herself by quite a few years.  How difficult.

Yesterday I went out for lunch with a friend.  We had an hilarious time. There is always a lot of laughter when we get together.  hahaha  When it came time to pay for our meal, she offered to pay for my lunch, but I preferred to "go Dutch" and not get into the cycle of who pays for who each time we get together. We had quite a disagreement over it. hahaha Weeeeell, the server brought the bill and I took cash out of my wallet to pay for my lunch...BUT my poor friend was shocked and dismayed to discover she had no wallet with her at all, ergo no credit or bank card to pay for her own lunch. hahaha  She scrabbled around inside her purse and came up with part of her payment in cash and I covered the rest. hahaha  We just howled at the idea that she had offered to pay for my lunch, absolutely insisted in fact,  and then I ended up paying for part of hers as well as my own.  hahahaha  Ooooh, the funny things that happen sometimes.  It mattered not to me, but I understand her embarrassment.  I thought it was incredibly funny!   Has anything like that ever happened to you where you made a generous offer only to discover your means of fulfilling that offer was unavailable to you??  hahaha  It has happened to, more than once!  

My husband oven baked some salmon last evening for dinner with onions and fresh dill that we grew this summer on our back deck.  He made roasted potatoes as well and I took care of making cole slaw and cooking green peas.  What a yummy meal!

This morning the kids at church, from age 3 to highschool, prepared the church service.  They put on a play about Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem after its earlier destruction.  What a hoot!!  It is incredibly difficult...actually well nigh unto impossible....to have all the kids present every week at Sunday School to  rehearse a play properly!  However, the group tried very hard and did an amazing job.  How we loved it!  There were tiny cutie patooties all over the front of the church, all costumed and playing their parts as best they could. Some of the teeniest ones had no clue what was going on, but they manfully struggled to lug around the boxes representing the stones in the wall and get them set into place....one little fellow kept being shoved aside by some of the bigger girls as he tried to take his box to the "building site", so eventually he gave up, tucked the box under his arm and went back to his seat with it.  When the next call came to add more boxes, he didn't even try to put his into the wall structure. He simply walked over to the pile of boxes, first box tucked firmly under his arm, tucked a second box from the pile under the other arm and toddled back to his seat with both boxes. hahaha  There were excellent narrators, some struggling to read the big words narrators, some older, confident teen actors and some terrified elementary school actors.  The most encouraging thing was watching the high school aged kids help the elementary and younger kids read their parts in the script, handle the props and help guide them in how to stack the boxes representing the wall.  It was encouraging as well to see how many kids were involved in the presentation....about 20 to 25 in total, with at least 20 at the front of the church at any given time while the others, the teeniest members of the troup, went back and forth between being with the other kids on stage and the pews where their parents were sitting. They were not quiet about their intentions either as they ran back and forth. "Mamma, mamma!!!  Look at me. I am in a play!!"  "Moooooomy, I don't want to be up at the front any more!!" haha SO CUTE!!  

My husband took me out for lunch today after church.  We were in an Indian grocery store making some purchases when my husband realized we were right across the street from DarBar...hohoho!  So, you know where we ate our fabulous butter chicken platters today!  We brought home enough leftovers to eat with our dinner tonight. We have leftover salmon filet from our dinner last evening, so it will make wonderful sandwiches for lunch tomorrow.  My husband and I have been blessed beyond measure in the past few years with wonderful foods to eat.  At some point in future, what with the rising cost of groceries, the shortages on the shelves due to shipping difficulties and who knows what set to happen politically in our country over the coming years, we may find we have not got the opportunity to feast they way we have been, so each meal of fabulous food is very precious to us and a cause for celebration.

My husband had one of his crazier dreams last night: supposedly he and I were staying with a bunch of people in some kind of hostel and the toilet was smack in the centre of the big room where everyone was laid out in mats on the floor trying to sleep.  At some point I apparently woke up and pointed out to my husband that the toilet was on fire.  He woke up and ran over to lift the lid, which had flames and thick black smoke pouring out from under it. Inside the toilet were a couple of thick planks that were smoldering.  Other people woke up and started to panic. hahaha My husband told them to just stay calm because he knew where to get a bucket of water to try to put the fire out, but when he came back  some of the other people had found some big hamburger buns, sliced them in half and them put them down in a row on top of the burning planks in an attempt to smother the flames.  hahaha  My husband had a fit and told them to get those buns out of there or else they would soak up all the water and prevent it from landing on the burning planks....at which point he woke up wondering how on earth and even if he managed to get that fire put out!!  hahaha Burning toilets....the latest entry in a week of nightly crazy dreams my husband has been having! hahaha  I cannot believe some of the scenarios in his dreams.....they are truly demented!!

We are likely going to get some rain showers late tomorrow afternoon, but the weather SHOULD be good enough mid morning to go for a walk with my walking partner.  It will likely be our final walk outside together until the spring. By mid week the rain and snow will be upon us for several days in a row and by the following week the daytime high temperatures will be down around -8C.  That is not terribly cold, but with ice down on the ground it is far too unsafe for me to be skating around out there.  Oooh, I am going to have to be SO disciplined this winter to exercise indoors at least 5 days a week so I don't gain any more weight. The excess 8 pounds I have been carrying for the past 2 years is coming off, but SO SLOWLY depsite a valiant effort!!  That is discouraging and will not be conducive to my being as careful with my food intake as I need to be after working so hard and still carrying half of it around my middle!  Must stay disciplined!!!!    

Another week has begun...another week of appointments almost every day!!  Doctors, mechanics, banks, prayer meetings....another crazy week, but it is good to be busy!   

 

Two Gentle Men....Gentlemen!!

I am chuckling at something I read in an email I received from my son last night. He is so much like his father in his generosity of spirit toward people he finds personally upsetting. In the email he was expressing gratitude that visiting friends had left their small child at home with a babysitter, but gently described the child as “electric” and commented that “‘spirited’  is likely an understatement.” 

I have heard my husband also use such generous terminology when talking about certain tiny tots, whereas my own description of those same wee ones would include phrases like “undisciplined little brat!”. Sigh....I confess am not as generous in spirit toward families containing small children who deliberately smash my things in my house, write on my walls, urinate in the coat closet while giggling with glee, all in full view of their parents who simply smile at them, guilt free about their own parenting skills and their kids’ destruction of my property as they call the kids “precocious”.  Sigh..... I have never known how to properly, graciously handle situations like that. 

I am not speaking here of children struggling with developmental issues and various medical conditions that hinder their cognitive and social skills, whose parents are scrambling every day to learn parenting skills that would have been beyond my own ability to learn at all.  I can only stand back in admiration for various friends who have parented children with such struggles and feel incredible awe for their lifelong dedication to teaching and mentoring children who will struggle their entire lives. I could not have coped the way these parents do. I am never offended by their children. I want to be supportive.

So, I want to learn to be as generous in spirit to families who have simply abdicated their responsibility to teach their children how to properly relate to other people, how to respect other peoples’ boundaries. I really, really do!! Had I been able to be more understanding and competent with the difficult children of some of our friends when my own son was growing up, I would not have felt so prone to sever the ties of friendship as I did back then. It is possible I could have developed more compassion for those families and learned valuable lessons myself about how to help their kids be more disciplined when visiting my home. As it was, I quietly walked away and did nothing to encourage the friendships to continue. It is embarrassing to confess that I did that. I was not mature and helpful in my response to those families. Sigh....I want to be as generous in spirit as my husband and son are toward everyone they meet. It isn’t too late to learn!!!

3 Out of 4...And The Weight Begins To Lift Off Our Shoulders!

 Today is a Red Letter Day at our house!!  After spending over an hour on the phone to the two remaining banks that we have been waiting on to sign the Letter of Direction, we were able to contact the most important one today!!  The letter was discovered at the bank and I didn't ask how long it had been sitting there with no one letting us know because it no longer matters. TOMORROW morning we are off to the bank to sign said letter and get the last of the taxable monies into the estate account.  Once that is done I will have only two more pieces of information left to get for the tax accountant. I should have them both by or before the end of November, so he will not have to be working on Mom's estate taxes during his busiest season in the new year.  

That leaves only one bank left to contact to track down its Letter of Direction.  Since that account is not part of the taxable estate, it is not quite as dire that it is taking so much time to get control of the monies.  We have left a message to request that letter be found and we will sign it at a local branch as soon as possible, hopefully next week.  

The weight of the world is beginning to lift from our shoulders.  We likely could have started this tracking process a couple of weeks or more ago, from what we understood from talking to the Estate Departments, HOWEVER, I think it was more important for me to have time to ask for prayer for my stress from dear friends and family who enjoy participating in the prayer requests; for me to turn it truly all over to God because of the support of my friends and to actually have spent nearly two weeks NOT being tied up with an OCD response to the probate stresses. That means far more to me than when we actually locate and sign the letters at the banks.  

THANK YOU PRAYING FRIENDS AND FAMILY FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!!!!  YOUR CONCERN AND CARE AND COMMITMENT TO HELP ME MEANS FAR MORE TO ME THAN ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS LEGAL PROCESS!  GOD BLESS YOU!!

 

In The Misty Moonlight!

 Gosh, I do love the ever changing  and totally unpredictable weather patterns this time of year.  A week ago it was a sunny +20C during the day, then on the weekend the temperature dropped and a cold front brought in a huge pre-winter snowstorm with thick ice closing the highways for a couple of days.  Today another change began taking place:  a slightly warmer front is moving in and there was some snow melt starting in the late afternoon.  Right now in the 10:30pm darkness there are trails of misty fog slinking past my windows and gently softening the normally brilliant glare emanating from the the streetlights outside.  I love nights like this. I like to turn out the lights inside, open the curtains wide and stand at the window to watch the fog rolling in.  There is something eerily magical about fog.  From inside the house I love seeing it.  Even outside, as long as I am not driving anywhere, it is such an otherworldly feeling when walking along in the mist as it rolls in and turns to thick, vision dulling fog.  Yup, I do love nights such as this!

Today was a very relaxing day for both my husand and myself.  We both slept in a bit...YES another good night's sleep for me....and he woke up just in time to go to his Morning Prayer group, followed by breakfast at the Regency restaurant with the other guys from the meeting.  He spent the rest of the day collecting information about several specialty construction companies for his friend who is doing a major renovation on a very old building in another town.  I rested for most of the morning, just doing some kitchen tidying and then after lunch I ambled out to a couple of nearby stores for a few groceries, prescriptions and just to get some exercise on a reasonable day where most of the snow on the streets from the weekend's storm has melted away from the traffic driving over it.

Tomorrow morning will be a good time to run a few errands:  refilling our RO water containers, taking in a couple of bags of bottles and cans to the depot, assorted other errands my husband hasn't mentioned to me yet.  That is always fun.  Then in the afternoon I meet with my weekly ladies' group, so that is always a refreshing time.  Hopefully the fog will clear off again by mid morning so we can have a safe drive around the city.  Although....after the wicked drive we had on Monday coming back from Alberta, a bit of city fog isn't likely to be much of a big deal is it? haha!

Heart’s Call To The West

Each time we visit Alberta I become more conscious of the differences between life there and life here. Although we are very happy here, each visit back “home” is a reminder of what we are missing. 

We miss the much better selection of groceries and other retail products even in cities smaller than our present one. We miss the driving style, particularly of native Albertans who learned decades ago the illegality of double lane turns and running yellow lights; who generally keep up with city speed limits, use signal lights and don’t dawdle about making left hand turns at green arrow intersections! We miss the scenery. We miss the quality of church worship music in the larger churches. We miss the few friends who remain there.   We miss the many fabulous restaurants and entertainment venues.   Oooooooh, we miss so many things. I know if Alberta residents currently had access to proper medical care and a rational provincial government leader at the helm, we would probably be trying to find a way financially to return there. 

As it is though, we will content ourselves with the goods and services that still are available here, continue to enjoy our dear local friends, be grateful for the medical services we have in place, support our church as it weaves its way through the many changes wrought by Covid and the loss of our professional musicians through retirement and other non-church work related commitments, ignore the scenery and try to get more excited about the cultural events that take place here. We are happy enough here.

Aaaaaaand....how often does it turn out that the grass only APPEARS to be greener on the other side of the fence?? Right?.

An Amazing Collection Of Cookbooks Online!

 A friend sent me the link below.  It is a fascinating collection of cookbooks old and newer that are full of the most interesting meals and baking....there are about 12,000 cookbooks and the recipes in them are available.  Some of the books are so old I suspect they never did fall under copyright laws and others are old enough that the copyrights have expired.

I haven't had a lot of time yet today to view many of the books, but of the ones I have seen so far, my favourites are "Diabetic Cookery", published in 1917 and "Things My Mother Used To Make", published in 1922.  The first one has several appendices listing acceptable and non-acceptable foods for diabetics and while some of those things still apply over 100 years later, there are definitely some changes in those lists for today's diabetics.  Fascinating reading!  I look forward to having a good read of many more of those books in the coming weeks.  The 1922 cookbook used a lot of lard in many of the recipes and contained certain foods and baking terms I have never heard of before and have no clue what the equivalent today would be.  Such fun reading!

https://archive.org/details/cbk?tab=collection

Today has also been a day of positive medical news for both my husband and myself; always a delight, especially at our age, right? hahaha

I had a very informative and helpful meeting with my bone specialist this morning.  He felt he would like to wait another six to eight months for my next bone densitometry as I have been doing so very well and he was most encouraging about continuing my exercise programme in order to keep helping my spine.  YAY!!!!  He is the one who was able to get me exception drug status on my osteo meds for another six years instead of the usual two. 

This afternoon we had my annual eye appointment and my husband's two year vision checkup.  We both came away with excellent, very positive reports and neither of us required any prescription changes.  My husband loves his optometrist because she is so eager to answer all his questions about the processes involved in evaluating a person's vision, medical term definitions, etc.  We are extremely glad we braved the bad driving conditions yesterday in order to get home and receive these encouraging reports about our health.  

After some overnight snow showers, the snow and rain appear to have passed on and headed further east today.  Although our high temperature was only +1c,  the sun appeared for a couple of hours this afternoon and cheered us right up.  We are forecast to have temperatures in the double digits for three days this weekend and that should melt off whatever snow is left on the lawns and the shrinking piles left by the street clearing ploughs.  I am happy that the residual effects of this terrible storm will get a chance to clear before more winter arrives.  Looks like the kids celebrating Halloween this year MAY get a decent night for their festivities after all, at least I hope they do.  Inevitably it seems Halloween is ruined for the kids at least every second year by falling temperatures and snowfall.

I am very pleased to report that the "veil" between rationality and my OCD issues has remained in place in my brain, dividing the two aspects of my thinking and keeping the OCD responses to a minimum.  As of Sunday sometime, whatever set me off about the probate issues still needing to be dealt with has not returned and so when my husband and I contact the banks again I just may be able to speak rationally and in an organized manner with the advisors in the estate departments! Hallelujah!  Thanks so much to those of you who have been praying about that for me.  While the issues are still not dealt with, the peace of mind is wonderful and quite a blessing!

And now I am off to try one of my husband's cinnamon buns that just came out of the oven. In Lethbridge we were able to find some fresh imported cinnamon....FRESH cinnamon that has actual flavour and aroma is next to impossible to find in Regina, so we are quite thrilled about this bag from Europe.  Off to indulge....this will be my dinner and I will assuage my guilt at eating a whole bun by following it up with a hard boiled egg mashed with fresh basil and parsley for protein! hahahahaha  Ok, I know I am fooling no one but myself about the dietary benefits of a dinner like that! hahaha

  

 

Wasn’t That A Party!!!????!!!!!

 Our weekend was amazing!  We decided earlier in the week to drive to Lethbridge to attend the retirement party of one of my husband's ministry mentors, our former priest from our first days in the Anglican church.  By Wednesday we knew there was likely going to be a bad snowstorm cutting a wide swath across our travel path by the end of the weekend, but felt strongly we should go anyway.  We booked our hotel room for an extra night to avoid driving home in the storm and on Friday morning we struck out to the west.  It was a glorious, warm, dry day and we had a great deal of fun laughing and chatting as we drove along. We stopped at our old haunt in Medicine Hat for lunch: Mauro's. Tasty food in a comfy, relaxed venue.

We met our friends for dinner that night at the wonderful Lighthouse Japanese restaurant.  Although the COVID induced new interior decor lent itself to too much echoing noise from the louder patrons in the establishment, the food was fantastic....SO MUCH FOOD for such a reasonable cost!  Our visit was filled with joyful conversation. It was so much fun connecting with our friends once again as we see them so rarely.  It was raining pretty heavily by the time we arrived in Lethbridge, so we were happy to have taken proper outdoor wear with us.

The next morning we met for breakfast then we all went about our day on our own until the evening retirement party.  My husband and I had so much fun just milling about together in various stores, as the rain continued to pour heavily all day and into the evening.  We splashed our way into Umami import foods and purchased not only a good variety of Japanese items, but some European jams and condiments as well.  We found a few packages of our favourite Japanese treat : konnyaku, a jelly made from the konjac plant, which is close kin to taros and yams.  We haven't had it for years, so it was quite a find for us.  We went to Nakagama's Japanese import shop for more groceries, particularly some very expensive tea my husband loves and a couple of small pottery bowls to replace two old ones I recently broke.  That was particularly fun for me!  We deaked into a Value Village store to get out of the rain for a few minutes, where my husband found some brand new "classics" for sale, such as the complete works of Lewis Carroll, with some of the original illustrations from first publications.  What fun!  I searched rack after rack of second hand clothing looking for  store donated loss leaders and discovered six different items that I love, all still with the original retail store tags still attached.  How delightful. I purchased them all for practically nothing.  

At lunchtime we decided on pub grub at an old fashioned British style pub with an excellent beer list for my husband and amazing food for us both:  Kingsmen Ale House.  Such a happy find!  My pulled beef "ROYALe" sandwich, (yes with a lower case 'e'!) with green pepper strips, caramalized onions and a droozle of white sauce was so tasty!  It was supposed to come on a pretzel type bun, but  there are too many carbs in those for me, so I had it without.  There was a side dish of gravy in case I wanted to dip the meat, and I had a Caesar salad with it. I didn't care for the dressing on the salad...far too much lemon so it was too sour for me, but the next day when we ate lunch there again, hohoho, I had a small bowl of the bacon potato soup with dill and it was scrumptious on our third miserably rainy day in a row.  Very hot and comforting it was.  We ordered a small dish of the sticky toffee pudding and it was still a huge portion, so we shared as much of it as we could manage....it was MORE than enough for the two of us...what does the large portion look like?? It must feed a small army!  The interior of the pub was inviting and warm, the service was friendly and efficient.  I think we have a favourite pub in Lethbridge.

The party for our friend that evening was a catered dinner at his church where he remains an active and beloved parishioner.  It was typical of what we call "prairie fare", and catered by a local grocery store.  The meal consisted of a salad, roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed peas and carrots (both locally grown and recently picked) and good old stodgy white flour buns.  Not so much as apickle for a condiment, but a very hearty meal, immensely filling and quite delicious actually.  In typical church dinner fashion, the ladies of the church provided the desserts...what an array of baking!  (We chuckled though when we noticed a couple of the ladies had broken with centuries old church "meal in the basement hall" tradition by purchasing their contributions at Costco. hahaha  An evening of praise the worship songs (So fantastic and led by the best church musicians I have heard in many a year!)  How marvellous to be able to participate fully in the worship song set, to be able to get lost in praise.  It has been SOOOOOO long since we have been in a setting where the worship in song was not interrupted between every song with announcements and sermons and prayers....all those are wonderful too, but I have never enjoyed breaking up all the music into fits and starts, dribs and drabs.  Gosh, it was an amazing experience.  There were slide shows and tributes and prayer for our friend.  His diocesan bishop and other former colleagues were also there.  He was glowing by the time it was over and we all left the church to find the rain turning to snow.

Sunday morning we met with our friends once again for yet another spectacular home made breakfast where I learned the joy of adding a teaspoon of single malt scotch and dab of butter, along with my usual 1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar to my bowl of oatmeal!  YUM YUM!!!!  We had practically fat free beef sausages from a local butcher, Greek yogurt and fresh end of season blueberries and raspberries.  Added to the poached eggs on seed toast with an underlayer of good, strong Imperial cheddar cheese from the previous day's breakfast extravaganza, I feel I have a whole new array of breakfasts to enjoy here at home. Thank you friends!

We then accompanied our friends to their morning church service.  Oh my....once again there was glorious music, the same talented worship leaders and musicians....it was like being in heaven for us.  The worship songs were more modern...as in less than 20 years old and we know them all, plus most of them are not sung in our present church, so it was an incredible treat to sing them in worship once again. The sermon was excellent, from the book of Joel, and during the minister's intro, he gave an explanation of what a true  swarm of locusts looks like, the incredible number that make up a swarm, their life cycle....it was an incredible learning experience from biology before the equally informative sermon.  After church we once again went our separate ways and my husband and I simply HAD to return to Kingsmen Ale House, as mentioned previously. My husband enjoyed their in house battered fish and chips with cole slaw.  We returned to our hotel afterward to read books and relax, then returned to our friends' home for dinner....are you sensing a theme here? haha We DO love to eat together!  There were pieces of oven roasted chicken bearing small blackened bread cubes and drenched in a white sauce, along with fresh from their garden potatoes and spaghetti squash and for dessert we had small helpings of salted caramel iced cream.  Great laughs occured when our hostess and I caught each other struggling for a full ten minutes to detach our tea bags from our tea cups because of the way they had been wrapped around the handle.  Our friends' daughter, killing herself laughing at the way we were each trying to so nonchalantly not draw attention to our mutual predicment, showed us how to pull the label off the string and therebye detach it from the cup handle for tea bag removal. Wow...did her mom and I ever feel stupid due to our incompetence. hahaha  a few hours after dinner, our visit ended and a  somewhat tearful goodbye ensued.   

Throughout the weekend we were keeping a close watch on the highway reports between Lethbridge and home and things were not encouraging. While there were only a couple of inches of snow in Lethbridge and very little slush left by this morning, 2/3 of our route showed that travel was not recommended and in fact, the last nearly half of our route home had been closed for over 24 hours and was not slated to be fit to reopen even by the time we arrived there in the late afternoon!!  So, we drove as far as we could before running into dreadful road conditions about  21/2 hours east of Lethbridge near the small community of Piapot.  From there all the way to  Swift Current we picked our way along the ice carpet with its 3 to 7 inch high ridges of frozen slush that were so glued to the road surface the ploughs couldn't remove them all the way down to the pavement.  Right down the centre of the highway from Piapot to Moose Jaw (look it up on a map to get the distances....it is a LONG way!) was the thick layer of ridged ice.  Sometimes the narrow cleared tracks were along the driving lane shoulder and then at various points there would be no bare road at all until the cleared driving tracks began appearing along the outside of the passing lane and all of us idiots out there on the roads had to slowly transition our vehicles to the next lane over.  We were grateful to at least be on a divided 4 lane highway and mostly only had to be concerned about the other vehicles going our direction....mostly semi rigs that were able to either straddle the ice floe better than we could, and were definitely able, willing and determined to drive down the centre of the ice carpet,  going  faster than our lower slung vehicle is capable of going in such conditions. However, the truck drivers extended grace to us and we tried to get over to let them by at every available spot.  We have never seen road conditions like that in our lives and we have driven through many, many horribly frightening storms over the years. No wonder the roads were closed for over 24 hours in the hardest hit areas!!  There was no way to scrape a 3 to 7 inch carpet of ice off the pavement it was adhered to!!  Somehow we managed to share the driving through the worst parts without me getting us into an accident or spinning us into the ditch!  There were still many cars in the ditch who had spun out the day before in the whiteout conditions and slushy snow and ice. There were several jackknifed semi's in the process of being hauled out of the median by tow trucks, another semi or two hanging over the edge of embankments close to the highway, an overturned semi with a huge load of pipe requiring two 50 ton tow trucks to right it without detaching such a heavy load.  Despite it being an impossible task to clear the roads, the highway maintenance crews were out in force, continuing to try.  Tons of salt had been put down hours before we got into that part of the drive and it was completely ineffective against ice that thick.  With the varying heights of the ridges all over the surface, the best way I can describe what it was like trying to crawl our car along, was that it was like driving over a field of dried up hog wallows.  20-30 km per hour was the fastest speed we could aspire to during the worst of the highway.  We stopped for sustenance and a break from the stress when we got to  Swift Current at the only  Original Joe franchise we actually like.  My husband enjoyed his chicken burger and cole slaw while I scarfed down a tasty grilled chicken caesar salad...a big favourite of mine when I am travelling for hours in the car!  A half carb unit or so from the croutons is all I need when I am getting no exercise after I eat.  The protein keeps me feeling full and the salad is tasty and fills my system with veggies. Yum!  As we sat eating our lunch we were looking at road maps of southern Saskatchewan on my husband's phone, seeking alternate routes so we could avoid the still closed main highway.  My husband had the idea after our meal to stop in at the gasoline station most frequented by long haul truckers who had come from the east and ask about the highway conditions, as we saw there were at least some coming through on their way west. He talked to a woman who had just driven a car from Winnipeg.  She said the barricades had just been removed, so although the conditions were wicked, we could probably make it in our vehicle.  So glad he talked to her and that we gave the main highway a try instead of driving another two or three hours out of our way on roads that would have still been "iffy" with no guarantee of a safe arrival home anyway.

By the time we arrived at Moose Jaw the road was clearing off, in fact it was almost free of ice from there into Regina. What a relief!  It felt so odd to be able to drive the speed limit for the last half hour. The streets along our route into the city to get home were wet but cleared of drifts and ice.  Whew! This old dumpy place we live in has never looked as homey and inviting as it did when we pulled into the parking lot tonight.  We are beyond grateful for answered prayers for our safety and our ability to get home today so we can get to our medical appointments tomorrow morning and afternoon. Thank you Lord and thank you praying friends!  We are both still kind of bvzzing after being on the road a couple of hours longer than we would have been with properly cleared highways, but I think once we do manage to fall asleep we will sleep well!

And Sleep Well, I Did! Again, Many Thanks!!

 9 Hours! That is how long I slept last night. I am so grateful. Yesterday afternoon it seemed as though a veil came down within my mind, separating the OCD reaction from my rational mind. I don’t know how else to explain the change that occurred after you all started praying for me and sending messages of encouragement, I am conscious of it still this morning. Probate issues are still hovering just behind the veil, which in my imagination looks like white filmy gauze, but my rational mind is operating quite apart from the OCD stress. I feel free this morning. 

Last night we were at a church service where we sang the kind of worship music I relate to best, a complete set of songs to open the meeting and I got lost in it, just like “the old days” before we returned to churches that only sing one song at a time in between announcements, sermons and prayers. It was great to once again be able to relax and let the musical worship flow for awhile with no “interruptions”. 

Looking forward to a happier, more rationally focused day today!

Thank you all again....the answer to your prayers for me yesterday was a firm “YES!”.  I am grateful.

Somebody Out There MUST Be Praying!!!

Since I “confessed my faults” to you my family and friends,  prayers were indeed sent out on my behalf. Thank you....I am humbled.  Over the course of today I eventually calmed right down again. It feels good. Tonight I am poised to fall asleep now and to sleep well.

Again, I thank you......

Probate Plus OCD

This coming week the Battle With The Banks will begin again. It is approaching 40 business days since I delivered the Grant of Probate to each of the four banks involved in Mom’s estate. Two of them complied with their legal duties immediately. As usual, the same two banking institutions that have been stonewalling me since the start of this process have refused to get the Letter of Direction to me to sign so I can get start managing the estate funds, as is my legal duty, and get the Estate taxes paid within the deadline set by the CRA. This new round of  battle will be managed by my husband because my OCD has kicked in again and I cannot sleep at night as various battle scenarios, most of which result in me losing every one of them, play over and over and over again in my mind all night long like an old movie with a jerky video track I cannot turn off because I am too paralyzed to locate the switch. I can’t think fast enough to carry on a rational conversation with these people right now. Sigh....

I wonder if it would help if I just told these two stonewalling estate departments that they have won the battle, that their tactics have succeeded at last in completely demoralizing me, ruining my health, successfully set me up for trouble with the CRA. If I told them they could fly a banner outside their head offices proclaiming their win over “the little guy”, and brag on social media about their ability to refuse to comply with Canadian Estate laws without any consequences from this lowly executor, would they then be willing to do their work and get that letter of direction to me so they can move on to their next victims? 

My exhaustion with this mess is complete. I am trying also to deal with three medical appointments on the same day early next week and the prediction of heavy snowfall with our first storm of the winter season happening this weekend, and, and, and....

If you are so inclined, please pray my husband and I can get this latest probate glitch sorted out over the next week. I have to get a few nights of decent sleep so I can get my ‘flu shot fairly soon without ending up ill afterward. Thank you so much. 

Running Errands Together Is Such A Blast!!

 In recent months my husband and I have discovered the fun of being free to run errands together any old time we feel like it.  He was away working for so much of our marriage that over the decades we each took care of our own errands and split the mutually needed errands between us. Having two vehicles all those years made our errand running more efficient, but did nothing to help us spend time actually together when he was home briefly between contracts.  Now we only have one vehicle, but a plethora of available hours to accomplish menial tasks!

Today was a spectacular day for elderly us:  we slept in, we ate a very late breakfast and watched news on tv together, (and didn't even spend the day wallowing in depression about the state of the world afterward), then we unloaded all the tools from my husband's latest carpentry project out of the car, took the bags of recycling out to the car, then drove all over town dumping off the recycling, returning our tomato pot to its rightful owner, going to the car dealership for some advice about our vehicle and making an appointment to get our winter tires put on next week, then off to  Canadian tire for less expensive headlamp bulbs than the dealer carries, ($30 vs $78 for the same product...which one would YOU choose?), filling the car with gasoline and finally going out for lunch together.  For the sake of old times and memories we went for the first time ever to the Houston Pizza nearest home.  Weeeeeellll, I will say the service was superb, the COVID hygiene practices were superb and the menu selection was also superb and the prices even "superb-er"!  However, the food was just the way we remember it from former days and some of it didn't stay with me more than a couple of hours. Oh well, we had a wonderful time together and even the music playing over the sound system was the stuff of great memories and conversation.

We spent so much of the day laughing about numerous things, silly things, crazy memories, as we drove around the city. I think running errands together is becoming one of our favourite things to do. hahaha Aren't we an exciting pair of seniors??

Our beautiful weather is in for a change this weekend.  Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy...and I admit we do need the moisture...then on the weekend we are expecting a rain/snow mix. As long as it remains a mix and not simply snow we will be okay!  It isn't to last more than a couple of days, but the system will usher out our presently still lovely autmn warm temperatures and lead us closer to real winter.  I suppose it can be forgiven since it is past the middle of October....I suppose.......

Still Negative

We are very grateful that despite two serious exposures to the Corona Virus in recent weeks, we have been negative and have continued to feel well. We are grateful to friends who insisted on getting together despite our exposures, to the positive reception in stores and other places of business toward our continued use of face masks, to people understanding our refusal to attend large gatherings, especially church services, where our own recent exposures could put others at risk. It has been a dicey few weeks, but all is well thus far.....another entry for my gratitude journal! 

I was grateful earlier this morning for hot water gushing from the tap in my bathroom sink rather than gushing from the hot water tank in the basement like it was yesterday, and for the cancellation of our AB trip due to our Covid exposure that had us at home when the leak began. In this case Covid exposure was good for something. 

I am grateful for a few more days of warm fall weather before the first rain and wet snows arrive on the weekend, ushering in significant drops in temperature as winter begins. 

I am grateful we have our son’s visit in a few weeks to look forward to. I am grateful his health has rallied since his heart issues appeared last winter. I am grateful for his job, his art sales and for the amazing woman in his life. I am grateful for his continuing spiritual growth.

I am grateful for my husband. We are so different from each other, yet we agree on so many issues. We are a somewhat sedentary pair at this stage of life, but we are happy with our lives. We get along well after surviving all the years of work and health stresses. Our lives are quiet now but very happy. 

I am grateful for the peace I continue to have regarding ongoing executor battles with a couple of banks. I have taken the past two weeks off to recover my equilibrium, but will be back on the phone next week. Eventually this stress too will come to an end. 

I am grateful for all the intercessors who read this blog and pray for me and mine, as well as for my friends like Cee who suffer daily from extreme health issues.

There is a lot to be grateful for when I take the time to sit down and think about the details of my life.

New Plumbing "Stuff"!

 What a day this has been and we have some new plumbing in our basement to show for it! YAY!

I called our property management company this morning as soon as the office opened to make sure the maintenance request we sent in the previous evening about our leaking hot water tank had arrived. In about a half hour the maintenance crew was at our door.  They spent a long time inspecting the tank but couldn't find any problems, so they refilled the tank and it wasn't long before there was water all over the floor again....it was coming from under the bottom of the tank.  So, the professional plumbing crew was called in.  What should have been a two hour removal of the old tank and installation of a new one, was complicated by the fact that a lot of the basement plumbing pipes and valves were so out of date they absolutely had to be replaced! Apparently we have been courting major water event disaster in the basement for some time.....yes, even more of a disaster than the leaking walls and buckling, heaving floor!!! (Yes, we still have the monitors we purchased some time ago for carbon monoxide and radon detection in place and the plumbers were happy to see those.) So we are now happy tenants with a basement filled with new valves and pipes and drainage and a gorgeous new hot water tank that has more "geegaws" on it for monitoring its efficiency than I ever thought possible!!  We have new valves, pipes and the proper flex pipe attached to the tank.

My husband was pretty stressed and we both wore ourselves out toting all manner of our stored belongings around the basement to give the plumbers room to work on all that had to be brought up to current building codes.  However, he decided to haul our winter tire rims over to his friend's shop this afternoon and get a start on taking off the rust and repainting them properly so that they will get us through one more winter.  He got more than a start. Despite being so exhausted from the water issues, he really got into working on those rims.  By the time he came home for dinner tonight he had ground off all the rust and put the first coat of paint on! (yes, the last of the bright canoe paint he first put on last autumn)  He is all geared up now to return tomorrow afternoon and put the second coat of paint on.  Since rain and snow showers are supposed to be moving into the area this weekend and into the beginning of next week, with an accompanying drop in air temperature, he is thrilled to be getting this done in anticipation of an appointment to have the winter tires installed on our vehicle.  The tires will be good enough for this winter, but next autumn we need to purchase a new set with a new set of rims.  We considered doing that this winter, but the jury is out on whether or not we will keep our current vehicle more than another year. It has been a fabulous car for us, but if we keep it much longer we are going to have to have the body painted, some struts replaced and some under the hood mechanical repairs....how much does a person spend restoring a 12 year old vehicle these days? Guess it will depend on the motor and some other major parts and how many months we will have to wait at this time next year for a new vehicle once it is ordered.  Lots to consider by next summer, that is for sure.

Tomorrow I am not sure what I am going to do, other than tackle a huge pile of ironing that has been growing steadily.  I was so disappointed today when I lost my balance while holding a bottle of bleach.  It spilled on my favourite casual pants and my socks, so they are all in the garbage....guess I will have to go to the stores and find another pair of pants that colour and style....clothes shopping....oh dread.....(but inside I said, "YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!"  teehee)

My husband brought home an obscure brand of Italian style pork sausages the other day that have no corn products, so tonight I cooked a very lazy dinner, but it was super tasty:  I boiled a couple of the sausages to release some of the fat, then cut them in rounds to brown them in the frying pan. While I was waiting I made a pot of basmati rice, then went back to the browned sausages and poured the remaining half of a bag of cole slaw over them, along with a bit of soy sauce and butter and freshly ground pepper.  Easy peasy and the combination tasted very good indeed.  There is far less fennel in this sausage than in the brand we usually have to buy to avoid corn products.  I love shredded, cooked cabbage but it is so fiddly to prepare, so a bag of cole slaw mix is a real godsend!

It was a good day today!

The Last Straw...Yet Still There Is Gratitude!

It is nearly midnight. We spent the last 90 minutes or so mopping up water from the basement floor and draining over half of the gloriously hot water out of the 40 US gallon hot water tank that suddenly sprang a leak at some point earlier this evening. Fortunately my husband discovered the problem while the water on the floor was still only covering about a three foot diameter of concrete floor around the base of the tank, so mopping up was a relatively easy task and it doesn’t look like anything stored outside of that soggy circle sustained any damage. If the inside of the floor drain had not been cemented closed around the washer drainage pipe we could have directed the flow of the leak into that drain, but as it was my husband grabbed a screw driver to open the bottom release valve on the tank, stuck a bucket under the flow and he and I ran a bucket brigade, me running upstairs to dump out one full bucket while he was draining water into a second bucket. Then, everybody switch! And away I went back upstairs to empty the second bucket.  I don’t know how many trips I made up and down the basement steps but I am exhausted. Once the adrenaline stops pumping I may have another good sleep tonight. Here’s hoping! We seem to have drained the tank to a level lower than the leak, but my husband is sleeping in the basement tonight just in case there is any more leakage. 

Here’s where gratitude comes into this latest suite disaster: if we had not cancelled our trip to AB, this very evening we would have been in Edmonton completely unaware that the contents of our little basement were being ruined by water from the leaking tank!! Thank you God that things worked out this way. We are SOOOO grateful to be at home tonight. We had to turn off all the water valves, but we salvaged some of the water in the tank in basins for the kitchen and bathroom and we have lots of drinking water. We also have an 18 litre jug that we keep filled with water at all times, just in case of a situation like this. So much to be grateful for. Amen!

Groceries

 As a PC Points member I received an email this morning from Loblaws Inc. announcing a price freeze until January 31, 2023 on all No Name brand products. I know I should be leaping for joy because I am now purchasing the bulk of my groceries, paper products and cleaning supplies at a variety of their stores, but I rarely purchase their lower cost store brand. Those grocery products tend to have higher amounts of sodium, sugars and fats than their more expensive counterparts so are not healthy for us. However, when next I go shopping I am going to go up and down the product aisles in those stores and ferret out every No Name brand product and check every nutrition label. A research project involving food, glorious food, is just what I need to add interest to a fairly mundane task like grocery shopping! 

Day Trippin'!

We had a wonderful day today....a FULL day away from this suite, from this town, from everything we do on a daily basis.  Only a day trip, but so needed and refreshing!!

We both went to bed at 8:15pm last night and slept fairly well, although kind of in stints, until 7:30am.  Waking up at that time feeling so good is kind of rare for us both, so we are very glad we listened to our bodys yesterday and just went straight to bed when we realized how tired we were.

By 8:30am we were on the road out of town.  Our first stop was in Strasbourg at Diger's Service and Deli for a muffin and tea to snack on in the car.  It is a cute little old place and had we realized they serve breakfast we would have left earlier and eaten there.  Strasbourg was the first of a series of teeny, partially deserted towns we passed by or through during our day: Govan, Craven, Cymric, Duval, among others....all once thriving little communities that have taken a hit over the years as depopulation struck for various reasons.  On the one hand it was a tad depressing looking at the remains of so many "once was's", but on the other hand most of the residents of each tiny place are taking notably excellent care of their properties, very few seedy, run down, overgrown places in sight.

Our next stop was at the end of 18km of gravel, south of the secondary highway, that took us down to Arlington Beach Free Methodist Camp where some friends have a cabin.  The camp looks over one end of Last Mountain Lake aka Long Lake, (because at 93km long and only 3km wide it cerainly IS a LONG lake!), and we stopped to walk along the beach front and look at the camp buildings and facilities. My husband was able to show me the cabin he and his friend stayed in when they were canoeing there back in the summer.  A friend of mine who is a minister for the Free Methodist Church has told me all about the camp numerous times, but in the twenty or so years we have lived in this general area we had never gone to see it prior to this year.  I was happily imagining the place crawling with campers, kids shrieking and playing games while the adults were having their conference meetings and entertainment and all of them sharing meals together in the camp kitchens and swimming in the lake.  The lake was completely placid due to a rare lack of wind and it was a lovely place to be early on a Sunday morning after the summer closures when most all is deserted.

We also wanted to stop part way up the lake to the northwest, at the Last Mountain Lake Campground and Bird Sanctuary.  To save us driving back to the highway on 18km of gravel, only to have to dip back south again on 23km of gravel to get to the campground area, we found a dirt track only a couple of km from Arlington Beach Church Camp that we followed for 6 or 8 km to the hook up gravel road, only a couple of km from the campground.  Wow, that was fun.  A mower of some kind had mowed down the weeds and grain growing between the dirt tracks, so the bottom of our car received only a tickle from the foliage as we crawled along. Fortunately one result of the drought conditions in the area is that the mud wallows that would have left our vehicle firmly stuck in the ground were completely dried out, so we motored along slowly but surely. Near the reconnect point with the road down to the camp we disturbed a flock of at least a thousand migrating white geese who scattered into the air en masse as our car approached them. What a glorious sight!  My husband was very happy to get to the campground unscathed and have a good look around to figure out which of the many available camping sites he wants to book in advance for another canoe trip next summer.  From the camp it is an easy jaunt by canoe over to the islands that house the sanctuary seeking birds.  He is very excited about that possibility.  We didn't see too many birds on this very cold morning, only a handful of black ducks, some terns, and one land gull that circled closer and closer and closer to me as I stood on the beach, before landing gracefully on the water.  From the sanctuary islands we heard a constant cacophony of birdie squawks, squeaks, hoots and honks.  It was amazing!

At last it was time to travel the last few kilometers into the town of Nokomis where our friends are in the process of turning the old United Church building into their personal residence.   Eventually their 23,000 book inventory will make its way from their brick and mortar store in another town into the church basement and the online sales will begin.  They have taken on quite a project and my husband, after doing his inspection, had some very expensive news about the foundation repairs, but all in all the rest of the place is in decent condition and their plans should be able to be implemented without too many more unpleasant surprises.  We are very excited for them. I have always had a secret wish to purchase an old church and renovate it as a residence, so since that will likely never happen now for me, I am going to enjoy the experience vicariously through our younger and still able to accomplish it friends!  They served us a marvellous vegetarian lunch which we enjoyed, and while the guys did the inspection, the gals had a super catch up visit!  We haven't seen each other in about three years.

Coming home again late in the afternoon didn't seem like a very long drive because we didn't stop anywhere along the way.  The car was so covered in dust that our rear window wiper refused to work. The blade was packed with dirt. So we stopped at the car wash back in town before we filled up with gasoline and drove home.  We were barely in the door when my husband announced he wasn't ready to be home again just quite yet and certainly didn't feel like we should have to cook dinner after such a relaxing day, so off we went to the Knotted Thistle, where he could indulge in his favourite shepherds' pie. I tried the Cajun chicken salad for the first time and it really was delicious, much better than their Caesar salad in my opinion. I got them to put the sweetened raspberry dressing on the side. A few forksful of dressing every few mouthsful of salad was more than enough to get the nice flavour without adding all that sugar to the salad.  The Cajun herbs on the chicken gave the rest of the greens sufficient flavour anyway.  It was yummy.  

Home to watch some tv, watch our church service from this morning on FaceBook and do some computer "stuff". Now we are off to sleep again in hopes for another restful night. So thankful to God for today's wonderful getaway!

Going To Sleep Early For A Change!

It is 8pm. We are about to turn out the lights and go to sleep. Neither of us slept long enough last night and we both worked hard today toting construction materials, washing nearly two week’s worth of laundry and vacuuming the inside of the car. To top things off we were told the mother in law of the retiring colleague we were suppose to be seeing next weekend has been put into hospice and hasn’t long to live. It is entirely possible the whole retirement party will be cancelled at the last minute and we may be stuck paying for three nights’ worth of hotel reservations we won’t be able to cancel in time. 

We are admittedly very tired, but the news of our friend’s mother in law about to die hit us very hard. This elegant lady is an old acquaintance of ours and we will miss her. When my mother was in hospital before her death, this dear woman was also in that same hospital just down the hall!! Now she is in hospice care there, even closer to the room my mom died in. As soon as we received the news my husband had one of his painful tummy episodes and I took on a feeling like I was a punctured balloon. 

So, we are off to bed uber early as we don’t want to face today any more. Yawn......too much, too much! Hopefully we can enjoy our getaway tomorrow, with the nice autumn drive to see friends we haven’t seen in at least three years!!

Picking And Choosing...Thank You Covid!

It is 4am and I am awake, likely for the rest of the day, since I fell asleep just before 10pm and therefore have had my usual six hours of sleep. Oh well....

I signed up last week to go to the church women’s breakfast this morning at a local restaurant, but as I have been sitting here thinking about it I have come to the conclusion that if I want to be visiting out of town friends tomorrow and next weekend it will be safer for them if I avoid having breakfast in a crowded restaurant where I will be in such close proximity to many other people. We have recently had two exposures to Covid and thankfully remained healthy, but how many  exposures can we have before either Covid catches up to us, or we end up passing the virus to others? My apparent paranoia is based on the fast rising number of known cases here in our town and the growing number of cases requiring hospitalization. Our provincial premier is trying to pretend the pandemic has ended and is not allowing adequate reporting in our province, but staff members in the SHA are not afraid to be more honest about what is going on. So for now my husband and I are continuing to mask in public areas and will once again be avoiding large groups where distancing is not an option. We have already cancelled our attendance next week at my cousin’s funeral in Alberta as it will be a large gathering and we don’t want to be the ones bringing Covid to the people there. I am grateful to discover that the Pfizer bivalent vaccine will be available here starting next week. So....picking and choosing and hoping to keep our friends and family safe. I have seen more people here wearing masks again, so it is good to know more people are paying attention to what is going on here even if our premier has his head buried in the sand.

Yesterday was such a great day! The strong winds finally ceased so my walking partner and I had an excellent walk around the lake as well as our usual good visit. She is now heading to Southern California for a week, but if the longer term forecast is at all correct, we may get one more walk in after she returns, before it is too cold. 

A spontaneous lunch with Kat followed my lovely walk. We ate Indian food and talked for hours. As the afternoon went on we discovered many areas of life where we are having similar experiences and similar thoughts. It was a great time together.

My husband completed the cabana winterization project so he Too is happy camper!

Conceding To The Weather!

This morning it was a little colder than usual in our suite when I woke up.  I went downstairs to make my breakfast and found myself shivering while I ate. Hmmmm....was it time to get the furnace up and running after all?  Our company last evening ended up putting on their jackets before our visit was over....our first clue that perhaps it might be time to at least consider putting the furnace on for the winter....BUT how to tell my husband I couldn't handle any more indoor cold temperatures??!??!  hahahaha I had no worries at all as it turned out.  My husband entered the kitchen after he got up, wearing a thick, heavy wool sweater, a toque and thick socks. "Um....uh.....hmmmmm.....when do you think we should consider turning the furnace on for the winter?"  "NOW!!!!", I shouted!  "YES!!!!", he shouted back.  My husband sprinted for the basement to sweep the inside of the furnace and make sure the filters were clean, then we turned on the main switch and set the upstairs thermostat!!!  We heard the pilot switch on and a minute later the fan began blowing glorious warmth up through the vents in the upstairs floors!  I am glad we made it this long without having to run the furnace....a month longer than we were able to succeed at saving money on our heating costs last year when a miserable system came through in mid September.  I am very happy....and now very warm!  YES!!! Life is good!

My husband has one more afternoon of work to complete the pruning project for one friend and probably two afternoons worth of work to finish the cabana winterizing project for the other friend. The winds this week have impeded his progress considerably.  He has thoroughly enjoyed himself but is now ready to return to more sedentary tasks such as reading/researching/writing as the outside temperatures continue to drop in preparation for the winter.  

Cee had quite a day today medically.  Due to the severity of his symptoms lately he made an appointment a couple of days ago with his GP and explained that the neurologist he saw a few months ago had no idea what to do for him, packed up his tents and faded out of the treatment picture and PLEASE could he return to the specialist who originally diagnosed his blood cancer, please, please, pretty please???  His GP agreed and immediately sent the referral....turns out there was a cancellation with the specialist this very morning, so Cee and Nan were able to get some attention nearly immediately. PTL!!  I don't have the full report yet for you prayer warriors, but apparently there is no chance now of reversing or stopping the neuropathy. Sigh... However the doctor spoke some comforting words that meant a lot to Cee and Nan and there are some new medications in the offing that may help with some other symptoms.  I will let you know when I find out more.  Thanks for praying....please don't stop. Bless you.

I am supposed to be going for a walk tomorrow morning with my walking partner, but if the gale force winds of the past three days have not calmed down I think we will settle for an indoor tea and visit.  I was grateful my husband was able to drive me to and from my prayer meeting this afternoon. The wind absolutely batters people as they try to walk down the street.  YUCKO!!

I am very excited about our weekend plans. On Sunday morning we are leaving early to take a drive about 90 minutes out of town.  we are stopping at a couple of places along the way to gawk around at some small lakes and campgrounds my husband wants to utilize next spring for his canoeing adventures and then we are lunching with friends in our destination town. They have purchased an ancient church building there with the idea that they will live in the top floor and turn the basement rooms into a place for all the books from their current brick and mortar bookstore, with a plan to conduct their business fully online!  They want my husband to do an inspection of the building and give them some pointers about what they may need to do to make the place safe for human habitation, possible structural problems, etc.  What a fun day it is going to be for us!  we will be travelling through a few little towns we have never seen before and that is always fun.  We are going early so that the inspection can be wrapped up well before darkness falls in the early evening because there are so many deer along those roads.  that is all we need to do: hit a deer on the way home. We had some close calls in the past and have no desire to repeat them....or worse!  

The drive this weekend and our trip the following weekend will give us a good break from our church services. we are reassessing some of our commitments there and wondering what the results of that will be. There may be more adventures than ever upcoming!

BTW...Update to previous post

 After conversations with some of you I need to clarify that my own abuse situation did not include sexual abuse.

What If.......

This post will only be meaningful to people who have suffered some form of abuse, but I am posting about this because it is pertinent to me this week and if anyone else gets any encouragement out of it, that will be great!

The other morning I woke up early at the end of a dream I was having about a person who emotionally and mentally abused me for years as a child.  between then and now I have had some excellent mental health counselling and spiritual counselling and many of the issues were resolved for me, as much as such things ever can be, but as I was coming out my dream and waking up I found myself sitting bolt upright and saying rather loudly, "You wrecked me!  You wrecked me!"  

As I finished waking up I realized that although I had been dreaming, my feelings of having been "wrecked" as a person were very real and something I had never specifically been conscious of feeling before, even during my former counselling sessions.  I also Realized that while I was saying those words I wasn't angry, or hurt, or crying, or dissolving into depression and regret, I was simply acknowledging for the first time that I can remember, that I truly in my "deep down" believe that many of my problems in my personality, in my abilities (or lack thereof) to respond properly to some life situations, mostly stem from the abuse I had dealt out to me in younger years.  I think the fact that I can finally understand and also admit I feel that way is going to be a very positive thing going forward in life.

The incident got me wondering what kind of person I might have been had the abuse never happened.  I spent a fair amount of time that same day thinking about it.  

Now I know some of you may be thinking that was a true waste of time because I am NOT that person, I have never been nor will i ever be that person, whoever that person could have been, and the idea that I could have been a different sort of person is purely speculation anyway.  I am only who I have been and who I currently am, so why waste time thinking about "never was's and never could be's"?

Well, actually something very very good has come out of it:  a clearer recognition that there is another life after this one that GOD himself is in charge of and if there is ever going to be a "better" me or a "real-er" me it will be when the time comes that I go to be with him at the end of this life.  There isn't going to be any more sorrow or sickness in that place. It is a place of ultimate healing and fulfillment.  who I have been on this earth will cease to be the foundation and centre of my life.  While my experiences here have shaped me for my life on earth, there is more to come: a place where the best will actually happen!!  

My life in its present frail condition is NOT all there is. I am so encouraged to understand this in a new and deeper way than before!  There is a place and time in the relatively near future where I will be the person I was ultimately created to be....a person in harmony with my creator!

How Can Two Consecutive Days Be SO Different From Each Other?

 The difference in attitude for my husband and myself between yesterday and today is quite astonishing!  Yesterday, (and admittedly neither of us slept particularly soundly as the winds started battering our place at around 3am), neither of us could seem to get movtivated, cheery, or excited about much of anything.  While my husband was at least able to pull some old clothes on in the morning, I didn't bother getting out of my pj's for the entire day!  We moped around feeling groggy and miserable and CRABBY LIKE CRAZY!!!!  BOTH of us...it was just ridiculous. Neither of us left the house to so much as take out the garbage. All we did was watch tv and complain and do a few small house chores and complain and make meals and complain some more.

This morning I woke up at 5:30am after only 6 hours of sleep...again with the howling winds.  However, I woke up happy, excited about the day despite STILL waiting for two bank calls after 26 business days since my last appointment, was dressed in two minutes flat, face washed, hair brushed, meds ingested, grocery list completed and after a mini breakfast I was out the door and off to the 7am grocery store openings.  I had a great time shopping, didn't feel rushed at all, found everything on the list between the two stores I went to, filled the car with gasoline, went to the post office and got home at 8:20am.  Ever since I have been feeling great: motivated, clear headed, not depressed by the 80km winds still raging outside, not angry or upset about the cost of gasoline and groceries, not bitter about the winter weather that is soon to arrive and not frantic about the world situation over all; today seems like a wonderful blessing from God just as much as yesterday seemed like an attack on our very existence!!  When I got home from my errands this morning my husband was up and dressed and getting ready to go to his Morning Prayer meeting!  He confessed he had awakened about the same time that I was leaving for the stores and he hadn't been able to fall back asleep.  Yet, he looked happy, content, excited about his meeting and about going to try to complete one of his two volunteer jobs for our friends this afternoon.

What a difference one day can make in peoples' attitudes!!!  Amazing!  May every day for the foreseeable future be like TODAY rather than like yesterday!!

A Most Gorgeous Autumn Day!!

 It is beautiful outside today: barely a breeze, bright sunshine, a cloudless sky and the temperature is on the way up to a high of +24C.  Today feels like a "BONUS" day before we get a cold front mid week.  On a day like today it is impossible to believe that soon the ground will be covered with ice and snow....I LOVE THIS DAY!  It is truly a day when expressing thanks to God for every blessing seems like a natural, easy thing to do.  Despite the completely bare branches now on so many of the trees, there are still spots of green and splotches of yellow and red in the landscape.  It is an "all's right with the world" kind of day and wow, do I ever need that!  I hope everyone in our little city has true cause to be thankful for something today.  

After a late breakfast my husband and I walked to the neighbourhood grocery for a few items. Strolling along in the beautiful weather was a balm to our two weary souls.  For a personal Thanksgiving Day treat we paid a hefty price for four pre-cooked turkey sausages that we will enjoy tonight for dinner with some scrambled eggs and seed bread.  We have a chicken breast left from yesterday that didn't get put into the casserole we took over to our friends' place, so that will be made into some kind of lunch.  

Last night we had the best time with our friends. The casserole was a surprising success thanks to the amount of fresh herbs we grew this summer.  Otherwise it would have been a bit tasteless to be honest.  I was able to leave the few leftovers with our friends to relieve them of one more meal of the tv dinners and grocery store pizzas that fill their freezer these days.  There was hardly a fresh veggie available in the produce department at Safeway that was NOT in the delicious salad they provided and the fruit cocktail bundt cake was made with fresh, rather than canned, fruit was the most lovely dessert.  We talked for nearly five hours before we decided it was time to go our separate ways for the rest of the evening.  So, there were two fabulous Thanksgiving meal celebrations with friends this season.  Thank you Lord!!  What a blessing it is to have friends.

This afternoon I am going to visit Kat for the first time in several weeks.  Life has been too busy, we have been away from the city at differing times, there have been many medical appointments and Kat has a wild and crazy job, so finally today there are a couple of free hours for us both to get together.  I am surely looking forward to it.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!! 🍗💒

Cee....Sigh......

I heard from Nan tonight.  Cee had a fairly decent week in terms of his neurpathic pain, nothing all that significant, BUT today he has been enduring an over 12 hour pain festival and the hydromorphone is doing not one lousy thing to help relieve him of the agony.  Drugs he was given to attempt to stop the episodes of neuropathy have proven useless, at least they have been today.

Nan is trying to make Thanksgiving dinner for their family and what a wonderful family they all are: she will have all the help she needs from them. Even the grandchildren are amazing in their quest to discover all the ways they can help their grandparents.  I am so grateful their family members live in the same city!  It is difficult to see any positive results right now from the prayers that have been sent up for so long by so many of you, but I do believe something positive is going on for the big picture.  Cee and Nan need some encouragement from God right now that their prayers for some pain relief are not just bouncing off the ceiling.  In our hearts we all know prayer is not useless, but when the answers seem to be NO so often and so consistently it can be easy to become discouraged. Please pray for Cee and Nan that somehow their hearts can be ENCOURAGED.  Thank you....

Stabbing Oneself In The Foot!

 The above is no longer, to me, just a saying, an expression, an adage, an old saw....nope, not any more.....BECAUSE....stabbing myself in the foot is exactly what I did about an hour ago!  YEEEEOOOUUUUCCH!!

I had a handful of cutlery....ooops, sorry, I mean FLATWARE for all you trendy  young un's....when a sharply pointed paring knife fell out of my hand and landed point down on the top of my foot just below my middle toe.  I felt a very sharp pain, looked down and nearly swooned at the sight of that knife standing straight up with the blade point buried in my skin. Talk about a fluke, eh??  I have a strong stomach, so didn't swoon of course, but it was tempting. It isn't every day I stab my very own self with a paring knife, thank goodness!!  I pulled the knife out and watched that teeny tiny cut ooze blood for the next half hour.  Good grief!  If a foot can lose that much blood from such a tiny slit in the skin, it is a darned good thing I didn't stab myself in the head somehow! hahahaha

So, from now on, when I grab a handful of cutlery, aka flatware, I will be very careful to only take non-knives in the bundle!  Knives can be taken in a second handful....or, better yet, only one knife at a time!! NO MORE BUNDLES CONTAINING KNIVES!

My husband had a good day. He slept in, he caught up with some of this weekend's football coverage while he ate breakfast, he got some other work done, then headed over to his friends' cabana enclosure project.  He would have been finished but was not happy with the door latch arrangment, nor with the window glass that had been donated to the project. So next week it is back to the hardware store to get the proper materials and one more afternoon to install them.  It seems to be a good job well done.  He is so very happy to be doing some physical labour once again, but without deadlines and the excessive responsibilities that go with being a general contractor.  YAY!

I took a short walk this morning. This suite is insanely chilly inside, but outside there was warmth and just a slight breeze...I could leave my coat at home and put my sandals back on my feet....ooooh, it felt good!  This afternoon I made a chicken and veggie casserole for tomorrow.  Friends from church are feeling lonely as their kids and their families are with the inlaws this holiday weekend, so our friends are providing salads and dessert and I am taking the main entree.  There will be good wine and even better conversation, so it will be a lovely afternoon and evening together. Tomorrow is also supposed to be a lovely day. Maybe we can walk to church one more Sunday before it is too cold...maybe even two Sundays?  Here's hoping!