Seeing God’s Hand In The Details!!

When we drove to the final resting spot for my parents’ ashes today, we knew we were in a provincial park and had gone over all the Park rules for scattering ashes. No problem....however, it has been a few years since we have been out that way and had no idea that a Park Pass is now required to be within the Park boundaries!! Duh!!!! One piece of research we completely missed!!! 

At one point along the way to find a good spot for the ashes we drove past a sign that said something about a pass being required but we were by it before we realized the sign may have had information of importance to us personally so we continued driving. My husband suddenly latched onto a memory he had of a friend telling him a year or more ago that a pass is now required, so he told me to watch out for the government office and parking lot just a bit farther up the road at Gooseberry Visitor’s Information Centre. We could purchase a pass there. 

Well, we looked and watched and craned our necks and gawked about and do you think we could see the place? Not at all! We saw the sign for it, but no building or parking lot appeared. Oh....well....perhaps it had been moved or removed and perhaps the park passes are only available online, which we currently do not have the technology for on our cell phones. We pulled over to discuss what we should do. My husband decided to press on to find a spot, take as short time as possible without rushing through the ritual and pray the park warden didn’t show up at the car to ticket us in our absence. 

That is what we did, leaving the area with some haste, grateful we had not been ticketed as we prayed over the ashes. As we approached the spot where the information centre had been in previous years, the one we could not find on the way into the park, suddenly there it was!! Right where it had always been! Right beside the road, it’s huge parking lot crammed with cars and a line up of people outside the building who were buying park passes!! How on earth could both of us have missed it driving in??  It seems perhaps the Lord knew we would not need to spend the money for the fifteen minute rite of burial for my parents. 

We also found that no matter what street  or highway we travelled today on our round trip journey from the hotel, the heavy traffic, road construction detours with long stretches of reduced speed and barricaded off ramps were all occurring in the oncoming traffic lanes. We breezed along the entire trip with no holdups whatsoever. What a blessing.

Although I am still tired from my overnight “adventures”, I was able to perform the final ritual to honour my parents easily. It was a special time of saying a final goodbye to their remains. I am so grateful.

The Scattering....Beautiful!

After a rough night dealing with a food sensitivity, I woke up at 8am, feeling weak and exhausted, but ready to take my parents’ ashes to their final resting place in the Elbow River Valley. My husband has done all the driving since we arrived in Calgary and I so appreciate that, especially on a difficult morning like today’s. We stopped at T & T Market to pick up Japanese style sandwiches with the soft white, crustless bread stuffed with thick tuna or egg salad or ham fillings, liberally covered as well in layers of lettuce, tomato and cucumber. We bought green tea “Swiss Rolls” with soft cream filling and bottles of jasmine and milk teas.  We wanted to picnic afterward on this sunny, warm spring day. 

As we headed southwest of Bragg Creek toward Little Elbow Falls, we became aware of how many other people were heading toward the same spots we were thinking of going!! None of the parking lots for any of the picnic sites, hiking and biking trails are open until after May 1st. There were cars parked for blocks on both sides of the road at all three spots we considered appropriate for performing our last duty of honour for my parents.....people wandering about EVERYWHERE!!!! Oh dear....what to do? When seasonal barricades completely blocked our advance any farther west, we had to turn around and drive back toward Bragg Creek. Sigh.... Then a half kilometre away we spotted a small pull off on the south side of the road with a lone car parked there and no evidence of its occupants anywhere in sight. We pulled over, parked, got out of the car and immediately spotted a narrow hiking trail through the trees, going in the direction of the cliff above the Little Elbow River. Two minutes of following that trail led us to a quiet, secluded spot under a large tree overlooking the river valley. It was perfect!!! My husband carved out a spot in the soil under the large, heavy, drooping fir tree branches and we gently deposited the ashes side by side. I gave a short speech, my husband read and prayed through the Anglican service of committal, we covered the ashes up again, strewed fir needles over the top and thanked God for leading us to the perfect place! Both my parents would have loved it there in the peaceful, secluded, gorgeousness. We drove back to the Bragg Creek picnic grounds, ate our lunch in the car because all the tables were taken, shared a few more memories and returned to the hotel content....a perfect scenario for the day! It was all I hoped for, thank you Lord!

Shopping Until Dropping!!

 Oh wow....what a spectacular day of relaxing and shopping we had today!! We had a good sleep and a slow morning at our hotel, no racing about frantically feeling like we had to DO DO DO. It was wonderful. 

Our meeting with the accountant was short and positive, so we left his office feeling good. The current strike by federal government employees, including the tax department, is going to seriously delay my application for the estate account Clearance Certificate by probably several more months, but oh well. I don’t mind waiting since waiting for estate business to move forward has become what I do best at this point in time!! hahahaha 

After the meeting we lunched at the Dirty Duck Pub and found out from the server there why the Inglewood shopping district was so deserted on a Friday lunch hour/early afternoon. Why was there so much parking available, so little foot traffic....on a day when restaurants and shops usually start getting busy for the rest of the weekend?  As we suspected, Inglewood comes alive on Friday nights to begin the crazy bustling about that lasts through until Sunday evening. So, we old fogeys very contentedly dined alone in the quietest hours of the Dirty Duck’s week. It was marvellous!! No pounding music as one of the sides accompanying our meal. Yay!

After lunch we had a serious time of shopping for decent clothes! Both of us suffer from constantly fluctuating weight, so to find the perfect outfits that will accommodate that issue, plus are great quality that is made to last, plus are our styles, plus are sold by small store proprietors rather than by chain stores is difficult, but today we did it! Hats and jackets, shirts and dresses....yay!! We can both claim with confidence that Regina retail stores sell nothing like the items we purchased today! Yippee! Some things new and different are ours. On the way back to the hotel we toured through the Crossroads Farmers Market and that was great fun. My husband returned to Tea Traders for three other packs of first flush teas. We also stopped at three thrift stores for used books. My husband particularly enjoyed that as he found two of the books on his reading list. I have enough books, so instead of book shopping I went through rack after rack of women’s clothes looking for brand new, never worn loss leaders. I found three of them for incredible prices, as well as a brand new purse! I have been seeking a new black purse for weeks at home  and not finding what I wanted. What a surprise to find it, brand new, in another province, in a thrift store. God bless all the retail stores who donate their loss leaders to local thrift shops! I hit the jackpot today! Thank you Lord! 

So, we are too pooped to eat out tonight. We aren’t even up to trekking to the dining room in the hotel next door! haha Instead we will finish eating the rest of the roast chicken and buns we bought yesterday, yum and yawn!!

Some Good Old Memories

Yesterday we met with two of my parents’ longest time friends to share memories of them. One of the friends borrowed an antique “one slide at a time” projector, so we had an uproarious time looking at pictures of 50 years of parties and picnics and fun shared between our family and theirs. It was wonderful to be reminded of the incredible feasts we held in each others’ homes, the dress up parties, the dinner club do’s, mountain picnics, and ooooh there was so much laughter. Our extended families had such fun together, with three generations of people in some cases, plus various additional close friends added in along the way. Those were happy times! I think these occasions are some of the happiest times for me growing up. Our host served tea from his family’s heirloom silver teapot still bearing the engraved family initials, pouring the tea into heirloom teacups. We ate our snacks from matching tea service plates. It was elegant and lovely and respectful. I am so glad we remembered and honoured my parents in this way. It was a very intimate and cozy experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it! I think they would have too.

We have been enjoying making use of our little hotel room kitchen. Yesterday morning we went grocery shopping and purchased a precooked chicken with which we made simple sandwiches for lunch and dinner. A few sticks of celery added some yummy crunch. Today we will go out for lunch in Inglewood again after meeting with the tax accountant, then stop in at the Silk Road for some fresh ground herbs and spices. My husband is so enjoying tea from a small sample package from Tea Traders he got the other day that we are going back there as well so he can purchase some more! Then off to the Turkish market for a couple of items we can’t get anywhere in Regina.

Last night we had a relaxing and hilarious visit with two brothers my husband has been friends with since high school graduation days. At some point they all found themselves living in Calgary, went climbing and snow caving together over the years, nursed each other through divorces and family deaths and various illnesses, became godparents for each others’ children....what fun to be together again. With us living so far away from them for the past twenty years it is a gift to still be good friends. 

Tomorrow we will check out the nearest T and T Market and pick up some lunch to take with us to the mountains where we will scatter my parents’ ashes. The weather is perfect so tomorrow will be a great day for a drive! (Plus more healing and closure on this chapter of my life.)

This Trip Is Good For The Soul!

Today I finally started to feel myself relaxing for the first time in months.....although it may have just been  lack of sleep induced quasi coma. I may even be feeling a smidge of actual happiness impinging on my somewhat depressed state of the last three years.

We left Medicine Hat fairly early this morning and made our first Calgary stop at my husband’s favourite clothing store...911 Supply and Adventure. Three pair of excellent quality cotton pants later, we headed into the Inglewood shopping district for lunch at the Hose and Hound Pub. It is a renovated old fire hall. When I was growing up in Calgary it was still an active fire hall and Inglewood was the hub of Jewish owned and operated retail businesses. My parents and grandparents purchased most of their furniture and kitchenware there when I was a little girl. Now the area is an eclectic mix of high end boutiques and restaurants, coffee bars, jazz clubs, vinyl sales, art shops, photographers, consignment and second hand stores. I love it there. The north side of the neighbourhood backs onto the Calgary Zoo. When I was small I would go to the zoo with my parents and afterward we would sometimes traipse out the rear exit and across the road into Inglewood for ice cream cones. 

We checked into our hotel early so my husband could have a nap before heading out for a light Japanese street food dinner at Kinjo Sushi. It has been a couple of years since we were last there. We think the quality of the food has improved considerably....not that it was bad before. It was a relaxed meal. 

Tonight we confirmed the rest of our Calgary plans and we are happy to have a few unscheduled hours in the city throughout the weekend. That is a FIRST EVER experience for us. We have not had a substantial amount of downtime here, so we are enjoying that aspect of our trip very much!

By the weekend the temperatures will be in the low to mid +20’s. Heaven!!

A Person Leaves Town And Look What Happens!!!

We had a safe trip to Medicine Hat yesterday. The highway was clear and dry and the weather was excellent. The farther west we travelled the warmer the temperature became. Wonderful, after the bitterly cold wind in Regina before we left. Standing outside under the canopy (otherwise known as the wind tunnel) at the gasoline station before we left, gave me a terrible chill. This morning we will carry on to Calgary for some shopping and a hotel that is new to us. 

We ate such a huge lunch along the way yesterday that we could barely face eating dinner. We didn’t eat until 7pm.....a slice of cheese bread and yogurt we brought from home. It was all we could do to choke it down. We were asleep by 9:30pm, so of course I awakened promptly at 3:30am, my usual six hours of sleep being completed. Aiiiii yiiiii

After our “supper”, we spent the rest of the evening online fielding emergency prayer requests: our house sitter’s stepdad was rushed to hospital early in the evening with a possible bowel obstruction and chest pain. The man is 96, so this is a very serious issue. 

The friend I took meals to the day before we left was also rushed to hospital that same night with possible septic shock. Marta is in hospital for at least the rest of this week on I.V. antibiotics for a massive infection. Since her husband cannot cook, I am really glad I got those meals delivered. I almost didn’t do it, due to laziness, so I am grateful for the nudge from the Holy Spirit to make that delivery. 

We heard as well from members of our study group who had to cancel last night’s meeting due to a serious COVID exposure. One of the members was with her mom, another good friend of ours, the day before and mom had just tested positive. Aiiii yiiiii again! 

At least by waking up so early this morning I have had lots of time to pray! And blog. And now I will send emails to families of our friends who are hurting and ill and tired and scared. Tomorrow is my parents’ memorial gathering so will spend this evening making sure everything is in order for that event.

Enjoying already the temperatures that are ten degrees warmer than they are at home. Although spring is late all across the prairies and we drove through the River of Brown (fields, highway surface, even clouds were tinged with brown) to get here, the higher temperatures the farther west we drove made us feel less weighed down. (at least until we received all the bad news about our friends)

We shall see what today brings. Today is my husband’s day for retail therapy, next Monday will be mine! 

That's More Like It, Mother Nature! Thank you!!

 Although the wind is rather strong today, the sun is shining brightly through a band of thin cloud cover and the daytime high temperatures this week should range from +8C to +12C.  While that is still cooler than usual for this time of year, at least we are above zero most of the time now; even overnight temperatures are hovering in the -2C to +1C range. YAY!  Spring is almost here fer real!

It has been a productive morning here for a change.  We got up at a reasonable hour and got ourselves dressed and out the door for some chores before 11am for once....okay, it was 10:55am, but who's keeping track, right? teehee

Our first stop was at Dutch Growers to pick up some dormant oil for a friend's fruit trees. My husband is heading to his friend's place this afternoon to apply it. It should have gone on a week ago, but there is something about a major blizzard that tends to wipe out the possibility of applying any kind of treatment to trees!  Dutch Growers opened a new facility out on the highway...a year ago?  We weren't out there last year, so today was our first  venture into their new space.  The place is bigger than some small towns!!!  HUGE!!  A lot of the front of the business is taken up with gift ware: garden gnomes and other outdoor "gee gaws", clothes, gardening gimmick items....kind of fun peering about at all those things.  Many of their plants and trees have not yet arrived, but they are coming next week.  In the meantime there are lots of fertilizers, insect sprays, plant treatments etc. etc. available for the avid gardener who want to have everything ready for late spring planting.  It is a wonderful place, filled with hope for the coming spring and summer.

We drove all over the city to find the particular Lebanese baking I want to take to my parents' memorial when we go to Alberta.  I finally found exactly what I wanted at Zam Zam Wraps downtown....the price was to choke on for three teensy packs of cookies and baklava, BUT I don't care. It is for people who are honouring my parents and these people are absolute treasures who I have known all my life.  It is worth the cost and then some.  

Since we were downtown already, my husband decided that if there was a parking space free in front of the Lancaster Pub, we would have lunch there. There was, so we did.  My Caesar salad with pulled chicken was a bit too salty, but it tasted wonderful. It was a good sized salad, but not as huge as some of the ridiculously large salads some places in this town serve.  Quite nice. My husband had the plain Ronnie burger and it was perfect for him. The meat was not overcooked, the fries were not overly salted and it was kosher salt, so big enough grains to knock a bit more salt off if he wanted to.  We enjoyed it.

When we got home I finally got around to checking out the vegetable crisper in my refrigerator and discovered a couple of large oriental carrots in there.  Although they were fresh, they wouldn't be by the time we get home from AB, so I cooked them up with some corn and butter, cooked up some turkey burgers and washed and trimmed a head of Romaine lettuce as well.  These, plus a carton of baked beans and another of chili, I took over to some senior friends who are struggling badly with mobility. She is in particularly bad shape today with cellulitis now adding to her woes. There is no way she could have cooked dinner tonight and he cannot cook anything at all at the best of times, never had to learn how and I think that his mid 80's is not the optimum time for him to start that process very effectively.  I have been enjoying cooking a few meals for seniors this past few months.  Some of them live on pre-cooked and packaged frozen meals full of sodium and fats, so they seem to enjoy something home cooked for a change.  The people I cooked for today are becoming aware that they are going to have to start using Meals on Wheels or similar kind of food service, or else they are going to have to move to a seniors' facility.  After over 40 years in a house they designed and built themselves, that is going to be a difficult decision to make. I feel for them.  So many of our friends are entering that phase of life where continuing to live in and care for and maintain large houses is becoming too difficult. Condos or assisted living will be their next moves. 

I spent the weekend doing laundry and ironing.  When possible I like to clean the house before we go somewhere, but that didn't happen this time.  It was much more fun to do some socializing and go to church and watch some relaxing tv shows, so, we did!

Hoping the weather forecast for the rest of this week is more or less accurate.  Being above zero again consistently is such a treat after our brutal winter.

Doin' House Chores In The Sunshine! BIG SMILE!!

 Even though the temperature outside is not all that warm, the big piles of snow on the lawn are slowly melting away.  Hopefully the ground below is thawed sufficiently now for that moisture to do the land some good. We certainly do need the water table here to rise this spring.  I am enjoying the sunshine that is peering through the thin cloud cover, but I still need to wear a cardigan over top of my short sleeved shirt.

It is laundry day today.  I haven't done laundry for quite some time, so I have several large loads. Today the timer on the washing machine is failing to move forward into the rinse cycle.  It happened a couple of times last time I did laundry when I reduced the amount of water in the tub to only a medium fill, instead of the large fill I generally use, but returning to the large fill solved that problem until today.  So, I will keep an eye on that, change the cycles manually, then let the maintenance department know about the problem when we get back from our trip.  Maybe, with ANY good fortune at all, a new or at least newer, machine will be brought in.  The washer here was ancient when we moved in here back in 2015, so I am happy and amazed it has lasted this long.  

My husband has been craving cookies the in recent days. He rarely eats or even wants cookies, so of course we don't have any and he decided to make some himself.  Using recipes for baking is not something he enjoys, so he tried making peanut butter and coconut cookies using only a few "suggestions" from a cookbook. hahaha  He forgot to add the sugar, so the cookies were pretty deadly for flavour, but he sprinkled and pressed sugar into the tops of them while they were still warm from the oven and seems quite pleased with his efforts.  I took a tiny bite of one of them and even with the added sugar I can't say he will have any worries about me eating them behind his back....or at all.  They are ALL HIS!

It is Cee's and Nan's wedding anniversary today, so I am praying they will be able to get to a favourite restaurant for dinner tonight and have a proper celebration.  Cee has had fewer neuropathic episodes in recent weeks and apart from one very bad one, has managed okay on only the occasional pain pill as the episodes he had subsequent to the really bad one have lasted for far shorter periods of time. Thanks for continuing ot pray for him.

Being Available To Help Our Friends

There have been quite a number of glitches in my husband's being able to relax and take it easy as he has moved into the retirement phase of his life; things such as COVID lockdowns and deaths in the family and an inability until recently to understand his energy is still quite limited and put under strain when he takes on too many outside the home commitments.

However, one thing we are both enjoying now, as the dust of the grieving and confusion settles: we are more available to help out spur of the moment when friends need a bit of assistance.  It happened again this morning.  As I was relaxing on the sofa, still in my housecoat, the phone rang. A friend desperately needed a ride to a car dealership where she had left her car for repairs only a few minutes before. The dealership shuttle had just dropped her off at her workplace when she realized she had left her work computer in the car....a computer filled with sensitive, private, work related information that no one else is supposed to see!  She had no other way of getting quickly back to the dealership to pick it up, so she took a risk and called me to see if I could take her up there to get it.  I could and she did.  We were able to get back to her workplace in plenty of time for her scheduled late morning meeting.  It felt so good to be needed by a friend who wasn't afraid to ask for help.  I need to learn from her as I am very loathe to ever ask for help myself.  No, I don't know why to be honest, I just always have been.  I love the idea that on days when we are not already commited up the Wahzoo we can be available to help our friends.  THIS is the kind of thing we both want to be able to do more of in future.

We were able to finish booking our hotels tonight for the upcoming trip.  We are going to be away a bit longer than originally planned in order to escape some bad weather along our routes and that is more than fine with us.  As we get closer to the date of departure we are both realizing how caged we have felt during these past few months of winter weather.  Living mid prairies is kind of like living on an island for us.  It is isolating in our case as we are not world travellers throughout the winter months, nor do we own a place in Arizona to escape like the other snowbird aged people in our crowd of also retired aquaintances. Travelling is not something we enjoy any more to be honest, at least not air travel with its present delays and cancellations and sagas of lost luggage. International travel is not remotely appealing due to such issues being so common now.  However, we really need to get off our duffs over the next year and get travelling a bit within Canada.  I would seriously love to take a drive across Canada next spring or early autumn.  A leisurely trip, taking our chances by not booking hotels too far in advance, would be a marvellous way to enjoy our retirement.  We also have to move next spring, so maybe we will have to miss our chance for a cross Canada drive then, but going in September could be wonderful.  It is something to consider.  Instead of pouring a lot of money into a new vehicle, we could instead have our current vehicle's chassis restored and do whatever mechanical repairs are required.  It is a good old Honda with a motor in it that is only 8 years old, so this is another possibilty we are considering.  Aaaah, it is good to have the time to dream and plan and enjoy a list of possibilities.  We are slowly adjusting to and starting to enjoy this whole retirement gig.  We also need to get to New York to see our son sometime in the relatively near future....maybe THIS autumn?  If we can get to Toronto, there are quite a few flights on several airlines going to NYC, so it isn't all that difficult to make flight changes if we need to once we arrive at Pearson and we never travel with any luggage other than our carryons, so....another possibility if the incredible push at work this summer for our son is over by September.   

We feel like we are finally burrowing out from under the heap of sorrow and grief that has been weighing us down for the past couple of years.  What a great realization that life can be good again; maybe it actually WILL be good again for awhile.  It is time to take advantage of this improvement in our emotional lives and get on the road again before too much longer! The upcoming trip will be a good indicator of our ability to travel in a leisurely manner. Usually we have always been in such a rush to "get 'er done and get home again pronto!"

The piles of snow have shrunk considerably now that the big flakes have stopped falling. Today we didn't get many degrees above zero for temperature, but still there was a lot of melting. There are huge patches of bare grass again. Most of the snow still with us at our complex is what was piled up in great heaps, so that will take a few days to melt, but that is okay.  Soon the water in the curb gutters and potholes decorating the streets and parking lots will dry up again.  The slush that was still frozen on the roads when I was driving my friend this morning will be gone in another day or two and perhaps, just maybe even, we will see more evidence of the coming spring very soon.

35cm And Counting!

Wow, we are getting blasted with snow again today.  So far we have had about 35cm and the thick curtain of flakes is still falling now at 9am.  It is supposed to continue to snow all day and possibly throughout the night.  Although 40cm was forecast as a mere possibility, we will surpass that amount in the next few hours, I am guessing.

We were up shovelling out the car at 6:15am so that my husband could drive our friend to his second cataract surgery at 7am.  The snow is wet and very heavy. Just clearing a path down our steps and across the lawn to the car took a long time.  There was a deep ridge of snow on each side of the car between ours and the cars parked beside us that took some time to remove as well.  The car was covered in pebbled ice, but it didn't take too long to melt it off the front windshield once we got the ignition and heater fan turned on.

We shoveled out our next door neighbour's car as well before she left for work and took the snow and ice off her car windshield. She returned the favour when she came out to work 15 minutes later, just time enough for the next vast expanse of snow to accummulate on our windshield before my husband had to head out to pick up our friend.  We had quite a bit of snow this winter and were so relieved when it all melted so quickly last week, but we are getting so much snow now, that it is going to take awhile for it to melt again....I still have high hopes that it will be gone by the end of the weekend!  The temperature during the day will be above zero again by then.

I am waiting to hear if my ladies' prayer group has been cancelled for this afternoon.  It is easy for me to get there, but a couple of the ladies are leery about taking their cars out on the snowy streets in case the heat of the moving traffic has not melted all the ice off their residential streets.  I understand that, but how quickly we forget just how much ice we have all been driving on throughout the winter. This really isn't so bad in comparison. Hopefully everyone will make it as we are giving a gift of spring tulips for our hostess who is having a birthday tomorrow.

I ate breakfast at 6:45am today.  It is only just after 9am and I am already starting to feel a tad hungry, like I need a snack, but I know I really don't.  My goal to stop having any snacks except in case of dire need has been fulfilled ever since I made the decision a few days ago to get serious about weight loss.  I have been exercising regularly again after lunch and dinner and already feel brighter mentally.  It is proving to be very good for the muscles and tendons supporting all the hardware in my one leg, so I am sleeping better with fewer aches and pains. It is tempting to feel very silly and down on myself for letting my body and mind go so far down hill over the past year or more, even though there are reasons for it, but I am resisting that temptation.  Now is the time I am ready to deal with the issues and so I am looking forward rather than back.  YAY!

The two Bible study/fellowship groups we meet with have now been informed we will be away for their meetings the rest of this month, so now I just need to book a hotel for the first night we will be away. We have to leave a day early due to a consistent forecast for freezing rain to hit here the morning we were originally supposed to be heading west.  To be honest, I will be glad of the extra day in Calgary as we have so many places to be and things we want to do. Already we had commitments every day but one and we need another day without anything to do except exactly what we want to do. YAY!  After all these years, decades even, we may get to finally be on our own to shop and explore without other peoples' deadlines to meet. Thank you Jesus!

Reflecting On Our Time In This Complex

It has been snowing all night. Now, at 7am, there are at least three inches of snow on the ground, the streets are a snowy, icy, slushy, frozen mess and the snow is going to continue for at least the next 24 hours. The heavy wetness of the snow takes away the concern that spring will never arrive. This kind of snow melts quickly once the temperature rises above zero again and I am guessing that by sometime on the weekend most if not all of it will be gone again. The two inches of snow we received yesterday morning was completely gone by late afternoon even though we barely reached +1C. 

As the reality of a move out of this complex is sinking in, after more than eight years of struggling to deal with the place, I am starting to think more about the positive ministry reasons we have ended up staying so long despite the many problems associated with living in a crumbling old dump of a residence. The most exciting aspect of being here has definitely been getting to know some of the neighbours, quite a few have stayed in touch with us at least sporadically since they themselves moved on to better accommodations. They are all so different from each other and from us. They are young and middle aged. They are Muslims and Christians and spiritualists and atheists and completely indifferent to religious beliefs. They are Egyptians and Syrians and East Indians and Aboriginals and Ukrainians and Sudanese and Jamaicans and fourth generation Canadians. They cover the entire range of financial and social classes. Living here has been a fascinating experience in many ways, some not so good, but as usual the people have brought interest and joy to the situation. Despite having had myriad complaints about this accommodation over the years, the closer we get to leaving it, the more good things I am remembering about our time here. Almost all the good reflections are about the people we have met here, those we have ended up ministering to and those who have ministered to us. Since we are signing another one year lease sometime this month, it seems rather early for reflecting, but who knows what will happen over the next year, right? 

Question for the day: am I going to dig out the car later this morning to drive three blocks to the hair salon or am I going to brave ploughing through the snow and slush on foot? Hmmmmm......decisions, decisions, decisions! 

A Good "Stay At Home" Kind Of Day!

 It's yucky outside today!  We have had rain and sleet and snow flakes of every size coming down since early this morning as a storm coming up from the south moves into our area.  Yup, this is the kind of weather we should have been having a month ago and here it finally is.  Talk about a slow start to spring!  Overnight the heavier snow will begin and continue on until the following day sometime.  If we are fortunate we will only get about 12-15cm of snow that SHOULD melt away again in a few days if we can stay above zero during the daytime hours over the weekend.

I do have to go out this afternoon to pick up some milk and bananas, but I think I will put on my boots and a warm coat and walk the few blocks to the store.  The wetness on the pavement is not freezing and I would love to get outside in the falling snow.  Other than that I am content to remain indoors until the spring storm is over.  

We are in the process of changing some of our upcoming travel plans based on consistent reports of freezing rain arriving around the time we were supposed to be leaving and it will cover about half of our route.  That is okay, it isn't creating any big problems at either end of the journey.

Yesterday was my idea of the perfect retirement day:  we slept in and ate a later breakfast. Then we ran a few easy errands, came home for lunch and then responded to a call from a friend with some problems with his computer.  We were free to go over and assist him in running a cable from his basement modem to his computer upstairs.  Now that he is wired in he is having less problems with dropped service.  We shared a coffee with him and his wife afterward and had a very relaxed time together.  

Then we came home and worked on some small home projects, ate a quiet simple dinner and flaked out early for a good long sleep last night.  

I am loving these types of days where we have nothing that MUST be done by any particular time. This is a generally slower week with fewer commitments.  We have time to work on our travel plans and prepare what needs to be taken along with us when the time comes. My husband has time to work on his research and writing projects at his leisure.

Yes.....retirement can be very good indeed!

A Little Calm Before A Big (?) Storm!

 After lunch today I decided if I am going to get serious about getting back in shape and losing my "COVID isolation/too many deaths in the family" weight, it is time to get exercising again.  I have been a sedentary sloth for too many months spread over the past three winters.  I have been eating too many fatty foods.  Yesterday, out of the blue, it seems I received back my ability to be disciplined after a long absence!!  Thank you Jesus!!

I had a big salad for lunch with only half the dressing, and that mostly vinegar.  Then I headed out for a bit of a walk to give my hip and ankle hardware the news that I will be wearing walking shoes rather than boots most of the time now.  I need some short walks like today's (only about ten blocks) to get the muscles around that hardware used to the idea that my walking posture  and footwear weight are going to change again for the spring and summer seasons.

It seemed to me that I was walking at a fairly decent pace by the time I was part way along my route,  but I became aware of some shuffling jogger steps behind me that began to catch up with me after only a half block.  The jogger and I arrived at the crosswalk lights at the same time.  Turned out the jogger was an 82 year old man, out for his 8km daily jog/walk.

"Good lord woman, I finally caught up with you!!", panted he.

"Congratulations!", replied I, not sure how else to respond.  I mean, it isn't that encouraging to have such a seemingly elderly man catch up to me in only half a block's distance.  

"Thank you!", he replied jauntily, tipping his cap at me.

"If I live until September I will be 83 years old!!", he proudly announced.

Oh great, I was outstripped by an 82 year old.....sigh.....

"Well", I replied, "That is wonderful news.  Happy early birthday greetings sir."

"Oh, thank you hon, you keep walking and stay healthy, ya' hear?"

"Oh, I do sir, I do indeed hear you."

"Okay, see ya' later hon."

And with that the walk light came on to cross the street and he jogged on past me as if I was standing still....guess I kinda was in comparison.

Sigh....I GOTTA lose weight and get back in shape! 

As if she heard my cry, a friend from church sent me an email a couple of hours later asking if she and I could go for a good long walk one of these days soon.  No excuses now.

Weeeeelllll....maybe ONE little excuse...for this week at least.  The day after tomorrow our area is forecast to receive a spring snow and rain storm coming up from the central  USA.  The storm is to last for at least two days, possibly as many as four days in total,  with the heavy wet snow compacting into ice as the traffic drives over it. There will be strong winds along the highway creating whiteout conditions....again....just like in the dead of winter.  We could receive up to 22 cm of wet snow, meaning power lines could be affected if the snow is heavy enough.  

My hope is that the storm won't be as bad as is presently predicted. One good thing about having a spring storm is that the temperatures usually remain above zero during the day and sometimes over night as well, plus rain often follows to wash away the snow, so whatever snow we get should be gone by the weekend.  

Here's hoping.....and in the meantime it is time to put on some music and do at least a half hour of fast paced figure eights around my living/dining room after every meal.  I feel like my head is emerging from a fog of indifference and getting my actions and diet back on track.  Although I have done well on my ingestion of carbohydrates each day and my blood sugar has remained stable throughout the weight gain, I have succumbed too often to the lure of more fatty foods and a comfy couch for channel surfing. Bad, bad, bad!!

Success!

 I am delighted for our Ukrainian neighbours. They found a bed for Mom this afternoon at the Habitat for Humanity ReUse store!  They found nearly everything today that Mom was still in need of for setting up her little bachelor suite in a nearby seniors' residence!  She will be only a couple of blocks from her daughter and grandchildren. YAY!

The bed was located because we too were at the ReUse store this morning. When my husband returned home from the church men's breakfast, he realized he really had nothing suitable among his little stock of lumber scraps to make a table top set up downstairs for his sewing machine, after giving our old dining room table to our friends last night.  So, we drove to the ReUse store, where he found a lovely piece of laminated counter top that will work perfectly on the stand he erected as a base for balancing a top on for his sewing machine.  It wasn't expensive so it will be left behind when we move, but it will serve him well until then.  He was delighted.  While he was there he saw a very good bed for sale, so we raced home to tell our neighbours. They went over to ReUse right away and bought it.  YAY!  Mom has her bed and enough useful furniture and dishes, etc. that she will be ready to move at the end of the weekend.  Great news.

After our little drive this morning and some lunch leftovers, I was kind of at loose ends wondering how to spend the rest of the day.  Shortly after lunch some friends called to ask if we could take a little drive east to Pilot Butte with them for a Chinese dinner at the elderly restaurant there.  Sure, something to look forward to, right?  That seemed to motivate me to get some work done around here for the afternoon hours.

We had a great time, lots of good food and plenty of laughs....SO MUCH laughing that we had to apologize to the man at the next table for disturbing him with our raucous shrieking.  hahaha  The food was very good and also very reasonably priced.  What a lovel combination!  Our friends drove us home on some back roads through the sloughs where we saw a little muskrat swimming about and we watched the sun setting. It was a beautiful sight to behold. We had a very happy and fulfilling evening.

So, church in the morning...there are only two more sessions as we complete our study of the Gospel of Luke. It has been a long series, but very informative and a lot of excellent discussion.  Wonder what the next set of classes will be about before we break for the summer?

The weather is good for a few more days before we get an apparently huge snowfall midweek. Blah!!  Well, with it being early spring, the above zero day time highs will melt the snow before too many days have passed and we will be that much closer to better spring weather.  Just praying the weather will be good for our upcoming trip to AB. Here's hoping and trusting it will all work out!

The Lord Is Leading In The Dark Uncertainty Of Future Plans

There is a lot going on around here and NOT a lot going on around here as far as our plans for a move.......next year?  Although we won't be signing our next lease for another month, things have been going on that have us second guessing whether or not we will actually be here for another whole 13 months.  I can't get into all the details here, but there is much more limbo in our lives at the moment than we expected when we first decided to stay one more year....we may still be here all that time, but whatever happens, we feel like something/someone bigger than ourselves is taking charge "behind our backs".  

One thing I have been praying a lot about is getting rid of all the accumulated "stuff" aka "junk" we continue to deal with. Yes, I have gotten rid of quite a few items lately, even some artwork and pottery that I love. My husband has also been slowly working his way through a number of items he has finally deemed himself ready to be free of. However, there is STILL SO MUCH TO GET RID OF!!!  At the rate we move sometimes on turfing out the excess, I have been wondering if even another 13 months will be enough time for my husband to complete all the purging he must accomplish if we are ever going to leave this place with its basement that is SO welcoming of stuff and junk. Sigh.........

This evening we had a glimpse of what God could be doing to help us with the whole project and what interests me is that he helped us already now to eliminate several larger items I truly felt I would have to pry my husband's fingers off of when we move.

Wow....the circumstances of this evening took care of all those items in the course of about twenty minutes!!!  

Our Ukrainian neighbour arrived at our door after dinner this evening, and was obviously very stressed.  It turns out her mother, who was on the latest plane of evacuating Ukrainian refugees being flown into our fair city, has to be out of the hotel she was sent to in just a couple of days.  Our neighbours were able to secure a seniors' living space for Mom only a few blocks away, but big, big problem:  Mom has no furniture, and her family found out today that the refugee centre that supplies furniture to the refugee families is completely out of supplies!!!  So, they were wondering if we had any old furniture we are not using to give to Mom.  Teehee....can you figure out what happened after we heard their tale of woe?  I just bet you can! 

Within seconds my husband was offering to give Mom a dining room table he has been sorting photos on in the basement, two dining room chairs we brought back from MY mom's place over a year ago, a living room chair we no longer use, a table lamp we brought back from my mom's that we have never used, a wicker side table and our second tv that we can't use because we have neither space nor necessity to set it up. All these things are in fairly good to nearly new condition and we have been hoarding them, wondering what to do with them when we move, with me dreading the idea that by some magic my husband would find a way to cram them into a new space when we leave here.  And now....poof, problem solved....13 months in advance!

I think I am in shock that the dreaded items, nice as they are, found a new home so unexpectedly and so quickly and so far in advance of the move!  At this rate, IF we are still here for the next 13 months, all the discards will be gone easily by moving day.

Oh, and could you pray that our neighbour's Mom could find a bed?  That is one item of the utmost necessity that we couldn't help with.  She needs one before she can move into her new senior's suite. Thank you!

It is hard to describe how we felt tonight:  it was just like God had taken the decisions about what to do with those particular items right out of our hands!!  Tonight I feel as light as a feather!  My struggle to believe we could just maybe FINALLY accomplish one move without having to quickly pack up a ton of useless things not needed in a new accommodation and be forced to take them with us anyway, is becoming less of a struggle as of tonight.  

I have no idea if this kind of thing will continue to happen over the next year, or if God knows we are going to be moving sooner than planned....it many mean not much all, other than a spontaneous decision by my husband to assist our neighbour's mother, who is here with three sets of clothes, some personal hygiene products and absolutely nothing else. I do know though that I am feeling more like God has plans for us for the future and is helping us to be prepared for whatever is going to happen.

A "good happen" or a "bad happen" or a fairly insignificant "happen", I don't know, but there seems to be some obvious intervention by the Lord in our attempts to be rid of excess items and for that I am grateful.

We had a lovely time at lunch today.  A couple new to the church came over for lunch.  We had a wonderful visit with them over bison chili, rice and salad and for dessert, my husband's fabulous baking powder biscuits with cheese and turkey pepperelli rounds and four kinds of jam.  They love oolong tea so my husband was thrilled to be able to oblige them with some high grade oolong from China.....the ethnic background of one of our guests.  His wife brought me a small, framed, Easter themed needlepoint she just finished creating the other day.  It is cheery to look at and I put it in a place of prominence in the dining room where I will see it every day.  It has Easter eggs and little birds and it makes me smile every time I look at it.  How thoughtful!!!  I have no Easter decorations since a box of them went missing many many moves ago, so this will brighten my Easter.  Happily in the liturgical churches Easter is a season that lasts for 50 days after Lent, so I still have over 40 days left to display my new gift.  YAY!

The weather is the kind of early spring weather we should have been experiencing a month ago...when it was still -30C day after day!!  So, spring is severely delayed, but after our 2 cm of snowfall yesterday, a bit of cool rain melted most of it away again by lunchtime.  At least we were above zero all day long and our overnight low last night was zero, so none of the moisture froze onto the sidewalks or streets. YAY!

In the morning my husband is going to a men's breakfast at the church.  He always enoyed the ones he went to pre-Covid shutdowns.  We women reinstated our breakfasts several months ago, so he is delighted the men have now resumed their fellowship time together.  Guess I will spend the time relaxing and enjoying a couple of hours at home on my own.  

The necessary stops, meetings, family visits and legalities for our upcoming trip began coming together this week.  Everything is falling into place quite well.  I am relieved.  Once the last couple of necessities are scheduled, we should be able to contact a few friends to see if they have some time to spend with us.  Hotels are booked, a tiny memorial gathering in remembrance of my parents has come together....it is all good.  For the first time since they died we are going to get the chance to visit the tree conservation area where their memorial trees are planted.  We are waiting on some information pertaining to the scattering of their ashes as well.  So, this is more of a family time than a visiting of friends time, but we will do our best to see a few people if we can.  Looking forward to getting out of here and finally getting the last of the post-death events taken care of now that Covid has died down to the point where we can do what we wanted to do at the times of their deaths.

Next week is looking gloriously free of commitments!! AT LAST!!!  All we have are my husband's regular weekly Zoom meetings and my ladies' prayer group and one trip to take a friend to the hospital for surgery.  It is all good...and Lord, may it last, may there not be any other unexpected time constraints on our week?  Thank you and Amen!!

Goooood Mornin’!!

We were awakened at 6:30am by neighbour children playing outside. That is a rare occurrence around here, fortunately. We adjusted fairly quickly to the high pitched voices and were about to drift back to sleep when we heard at top volume: “OK Lexie, BOMBS AWAY!!!!” hahaha That did it, we both got the giggles and couldn’t go back to sleep. It’s going to be a loooong day, hahaha! I admit I hadn’t slept well to that point anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal. 

My afternoon prayer group is cancelled today because our hostess didn’t sleep last night either. She sent out a cancellation email at 4am, after taking two sleeping pills and still not falling asleep. Nice to know I am not alone with these sleep issues, but I am sorry she had such a rough time. 

The last couple of days have been the usual ho hum routine of housework, banking, reading, blah, blah, blah. Last night we had fun though. We took some of my bison chili over to some elderly friends. They made rice and a salad and we had dinner together. The guys watched some tv clips about ancient architecture after dinner while we women had a good chat about the state of the world. 

Today we hope to hear from our financial advisor who badly messed up a transaction he thought he had completed for us at the end of February!! He just discovered the problem a couple of days ago and swore he would be in touch with us by yesterday to come in and sign the papers necessary to repair the damage. Of course we heard nothing from him. Sigh.....  I am pretty torqued because I was already frustrated by my husband’s moving our accounts to this particular bank in the first place. For me this bank has created nothing but problems since the start of our dealings there a number of years ago;  this is just the latest problem. So, I have made the decision to withdraw all the money that is technically my own when I am able to close out the Estate account and open accounts at the bank of my own choosing. 

Tomorrow new friends from church are coming over for lunch. We will eat more of the chili and my husband will make biscuits to go with it. I will make a salad of some sort as well. We have tried three times to have this couple over and the first two attempts had to be canceled due to illness. Here’s hoping tomorrow will work out!! 

Well my husband is just starting a Zoom meeting and I need to finish some cleaning in anticipation of tomorrow’s company. After two glorious days of warmer weather and quickly meting snow, we are supposed to be getting quite a bit more precipitation in the next couple of days.

Changes of Plan/Blessed Serendipities

We awakened this morning to an email from our friends who we planned to eat dinner with this evening.  The note was short; our hostess had come down with the most horrible cold and was not well enough to put on the dinner, plus it wouldn't be safe for us to be together if my husband and I want to stay healthy.  We were sad.

However, we decided to go out of town anyway and take advantage of the warming temperature, the lack of wind and the lovely sunshine!!  We decided to take our friend's gift with us and risk dropping it at his home, just so he would know he was being thought about on his special day. 

As soon as we arrived in town we drove over to our friends' place to drop off the gift.  The house was in darkness, the car was gone, so we assumed the birthday boy had gone out and left his very ill wife to rest.  We didn't even knock on the door in case she was sleeping, just drove away with a plan to return a bit later on and try again.  

Our next stop was to the home of more casual friends who we have not seen since the pandemic began....actually, the year before that, so it has been about four years since our last visit in person.  We have spoken once or twice a year on the phone and exchanged Christmas cards, but just haven't had the chance to spend time together.  It was a drop-in visit, actually just to drop off a gift to them that I have had sitting around for a long time while waiting to see them. However, these friends are blessed with the gift of true prairie hospitality and insisted we come in for a cup of tea and a cookie.  Thankful to God for that cookie because it was nearly my lunch time by the time we arrived at their home and we ended up staying for over two hours!  hahaha We had such a good time!  

The cookie tided me over until we arrived at a restaurant at about 2:30pm, exactly 6 hours since I had finished my breakfast.  That is absolutely the top limit of how long I can, or am even supposed to, wait between meals.  We had a very nice meal. My husband enjoyed a crispy chicken burger with two thick slices of back bacon and I had a delicious taco salad with chicken.  My salad came with a thick slice of garlic toast....how many years has it been since restaurants stopped serving a slice of toast with their salads?  WAY too many!  I was as delighted by the toast as I was by the salad itself!!  I was delighted enough not to complain about the unreasonable charge of $4.50 for two tablespoons of guacamole.  Okay, okay, my drink was $1.50 less than what I usually pay for it and my husband's glass of beer was at least $2 less than he usually pays, so.....it all rounded itself out. hahahaha  Justifying it like that makes me feel less ripped off about the price of the guacamole. hahahaha  It was a lot of fun and being there mid-afternoon meant there were few other customers.  NICE!  Plus the background music was actually in the background! NICE!!

After lunch we decided to try one more time to drop offour friend's birthday gift.  As we drove up to the house we saw his car parked in the driveway, so we knew he was at home.  His wife was looking out the window as we got out of the car and a huge smile lit up her face.  We felt welcome before we even got to the door, which was flung open quickly as we walked up the steps.  The dog came running out to greet us and that was such fun. She is a great big short haired brindle dog, the breed I cannot remember and she looks terrifying, but she is a sack of mush if you just rub her ears for a few seconds.  hahaha  Our friend gave us big hugs and his wife decided she felt well enough to put on her winter coat and visit outside in the sunshine for a few minutes. She truly kept her distance so we wouldn't be at risk of catching her cold and we all had a lovely visit together before my husband and I headed home. 

What a wonderful day!!  Thank you Lord for giving me the push to insist we still take our drive.  We had two wonderful visits and when we left home this morning we assumed we wouldn't be having any visits at all.  The weather was perfect, the highway and side roads were clear of snow and weren't too covered in puddles.  

We had a very blessed and happy day of connecting with friends old and newer. Thank you Lord!

The Son Goes To His Local Farmers' Market

 Oh dear, dear son:  What happened????  No wonder your girlfriend sent us this photo with an accompanying email giggling about your being the farmers' market fashionista! hahaha Aiii Yiiiii But...we still love you despite the dour expression on your face and your somewhat "interesting" haberdashery!!. hahaha This photo is hilarious!

 

 

 

He IS Risen Indeed!!

 It has been a nice quiet Easter weekend for us, the quietest in a few years. My husband refrained from taking on any church related commitments and enjoyed his weekend very much.  Church this morning was a lot of fun.  There was some good choir singing and at the end of the service we all sang the Halleujah Chorus.  That is an annual tradition at our church, so it was fun to see how many people participated in the singing and how much the non-singers enjoyed it as well.  The kids were a bit hyper today because there was an Easter egg hunt right after the service.  They were SO EXCITED, but behaved themselves well throughout the service, working on their Busy Packs. They had to hand in what they had done to the Childrens' Ministries pastor after the service, then she would give them a collection bag and they could get searching for those yummy chocolate eggs.  My husband and I were chuckling throughout the service because we could see brightly wrapped little eggs all over the sanctuary. hahaha  They were under the piano, around the base of the pulpit, on the altar, in the pew racks, up in the choir loft, on various benches at the back of the church.....they were EVERYWHERE and those sweet kids didn't cheat at all by picking up some of the eggs before and during the service. They all waited until it was time to hunt.  Bless their hearts!!

My husband was desperate for some good Chinese food after church today, so off we went to Mei Wei.  It is fairly good there.  There really aren't any fabulous Chinese food restaurants here, but there are quite a few decent ones that serve mostly standard Canadian Chinese restaurant fare.  The prices at Mei Wei are decent, not too big a jump compared to many other restaurants post-pandemic.  I just enjoyed not having to cook lunch or wash dishes afterward.  hahaha  We brought home enough leftovers for my husband to have for dinner. I was too full to eat much after my very filling combo plate at noon.

I spent the afternoon making 9 huge cartons of chili!  Where I am going to store all these cartons....I can only fit 2 into my tiny refrigerator freezer.....I am not sure, but I think that having so much abundance means I should give some away.  We are taking some over to friends mid-week for dinner as they have mobility problems that interfere with cooking and we will likely serve some for lunch another day when we have company coming for a meal.  I think I will give one to a couple of friends who work long hours and have very stressful jobs right now.  They like chili and perhaps would appreciate having one dinner this week they don't have to prepare after work.  I used 2 cups of white pinto beans and 2 cups of red pinto beans, 2 large onions, 4 cloves of garlic, a green pepper, a red pepper,  can of sliced black olives and 1/3 of a bottle of stuffed green olives, a large can of crushed tomatoes, a large can of diced tomatoes, 4 cans of tomato sauce and a small can of tomato paste, freshly crushed basil, oregano, thyme, and rosemary, plus a few tablespoons of a chili powder, paprika mix with a dash of salt and some freshly ground pepper.  I will test the flavour again tomorrow after it has had overnight to meld and adjust the herb'n'hotness mix from there before I serve it to anyone else.  It was fun cooking up such a large batch!!  BUUUT, what was I thinking, I wondered as I gazed into my teeny tiny, all ready full refrigerator freezer??? hahaha

Yesterday I discovered all the sympathy cards I received upon the death of each of my parents.  I wasn't expecting to see them again, thinking I had discarded them some months ago.  It was jarring to come across them in a box in the basement.  My husband, who watched me discard them just before Christmas, sneaked around behind my back and hauled them back to the basement storage.  Finding them was not the most pleasant of surprises.  I brought them upstairs and sat for awhile reading through all the messages people lovingly sent and that I still very much appreciate, but I admit that looking through all those cards again was hard slugging emotionally.  They are sitting on my desk right now.  I doubt I will look at them again.  My mindset has always been that there is a time limit on keeping things that depress me and I am sure that time is now for these cards.  It was interesting how different people sent cards for Dad than they did for Mom, very few overlaps.  Well, I have done my duty dear husband and read them all through again.  I think that is enough.  I have peace about both my parents' final destinies and I know my card sending friends love me so there is no need to hang onto the depression that these cards stir up.

Really, REALLY looking forward to our trip out of town tomorrow to see our friend who is having a "big number" birthday!  I wrote to a friend today describing all the travelling internationally and throughout the USA my son is going to be doing in the coming months; the following paragraph was about our own travels....one trip.....an hour away! hahaha O how she laughed about that!  Me too!!

Now I just hope and pray that my husband and I will find the energy to make our AB trip plans for the end of this month.  We were supposed to start working on that at the end of last week and it still hasn't happened!  Aaaargh!!

 

If I Have Not Responded To Your Email This Week.....

 .....it is likely because I have not yet received it. 

This past week has been a bit of a nightmare with several emails not arriving until one or two days after they were sent. A time sensitive email that was sent two days ago arrived this morning. The late arrival has created quite a problem that will now be difficult to resolve. 

This is not the first issue I have had with late arriving emails. It is beyond frustrating. The late arrivals were sent from a variety of servers, so it seems our Sasktel server is the problem. Drat!

Perhaps, if you need a response to something time sensitive, just call me instead. I apologize for any late or non-existent responses to your email queries. I am usually a quick responder to emails, so if I don’t respond within a reasonable amount of time after sending, let me know by phone.

To Good Friday.......And Beyond!!

The weather is beginning to change at last...for the better! YAY!  Hopefully this is the start of true spring at last.  After it being -26C overnight a couple of nights ago, we are on a warming trend into next week, up to +16C by mid week.  Hmmm.....flooding in the streets is quite likely considering all the snow that will be effected by the sudden rise in temperature.   

Wednesday night into Thursday morning I managed to sleep all of two hours due to a pinched nerve in my "bad" hip. Yikes....but at least I was awake and ready to drive my friend at 6:50am to the surgical centre for his cataract surgery.  God blessed me with parking spaces. Honestly, this city is so bad for having businesses crammed into narrow old lots with a completely inadequate number of parking stalls!  However, it all went well for me the other morning.  My friend was told to be prepared to wait for 3 hours post surgery before he would be released, but just over an hour after I dropped him off, he called to let me know he was done and ready to go. Again, there was a parking spot open for me at the centre that was easy to get into and easy for my somewhat vision challenged friend to navigate as he got into the passenger seat in my car.  We had an uneventful drive across the city to his ophthalmologist's office for his post surgical check up and that also went faster than planned. I got home long before I expected to be there, so had lots of time to change my clothes and drive with my husband to the funeral of a beloved former parishioner.  That was a wonderful answer to prayer....thank you prayer warriors. Despite the exhaustion, I managed to make it through the funeral service, but my husband too had not slept well and was feeling punky, so after greeting the widow and her family, we headed home for lunch and a short nap before I went to the ladies' prayer group for the afternoon. That evening we opted to attend the Maundy Thursday service online as we were too tired to go anywhere else.  Yawn.....It was well done with the stripping of the altar to end the service.  It was very powerful as the lights were then turned out and people quietly left the church. Liturgical Baptists....who'da thunk it??

I did catch up on my sleep last night, thankfully, but still feel like a bit of a punching bag today.  I opted to not go with my husband to an Anglican Good Friday service. I am guessing he was just as happy as he desperately wanted to walk over there and it is VERY far away.  There is no way I could have accomplished such a long walk there and back today. The online Good Friday service our church was sharing with three other churches appeared like it was going to be a good one, but a cousin I rarely hear from called me shortly after it started. He would have been just fine had I had asked him to call back later, but it was so nice to hear from him that I abandoned the service.  It was all good.  Now I am posting and emailing and snoozing for the rest of the afternoon!  Maybe I will start a new book.

Tomorrow I am going to make chili with some of the fabulous bison meat that I ordered a few weeks ago.  Friends who are somewhat incapacitated at their home right now want us to bring over a meal for them and chili is just the thing. The bison gives a simple meal a rich flavour.  We love it!! Hopefully our friends will too.

On Easter Monday we are going out of town for the first time in several months and the weather forecast (at the moment) appears to indicate a wonderful day to go for a bit of a drive.  Praying and hoping that turns out to be the case!  I have a bag to take to our friends who are giving us dinner that night. It is filled with their Christmas, birthday, anniversary and Easter cards and gifts. The highways and weather have been so miserable since the autumn that we have been nowhere and trying to coordinate their schedules and ours is always a nightmare. At long last it just MAY be happening!!!  As I look at all the "stuff" hanging on my walls and sitting on my china cabinet shelves that I have been enjoying for years, then thinking ahead to our downsizing project, I have decided to wrap up a few nice "surprises" to drop off at the homes of various other friends in that area as we travel through on Monday.  Should be a hoot!!  All of them have indicated on previous visits to our home some things they would love to have "if you ever want to get rid of it....", so since that is what I AM doing, they might as well enjoy the things themselves.  I have two more boxes ready for the thrift stores as well.  My husband is nearly finished with the family photo project so in another couple of weeks we will have boxes containing over three thousand photos and slides ready for dumping.  Aaaaah....freedom!

My husband has just arrived home from the Good Friday service and the long walk. He says it is absolutely freezing out there due to a strong wind out of the south east.  His face is red from wind burn, his gloved hands are tingling from the cold and despite wearing a heavy toque, his ears are absolutely frozen!! Thank you Lord that I didn't insist on walking with him today!!!  Guess the bright sunshine is only a tantalizing HINT of better weather to come!!

A Bright Sunny Day For Rodding Around Town!

 I love days like this!  Although there is still snow and ice and a chilly temperature happening outside, today the sunshine was brilliant and beautiful.  My husband decided this was a good day to get out and run some errands he has been putting off, so I went along for the ride.  We grocery shopped for a few items at the Safeway in Cathedral, where their deli manager told us all the Passover foods are now only available at the Southland Safeway, so after we went to the library, Cuppa T and Paper Umbrella for some gifts for others and ourselves, then Shoppers for a prescription pickup, we headed off to Southland Safeway where my husband was able to pick up some nice fresh matzoh flour for his personal Passover feast.  He is not doing a Seder supper this year, likely not making too many of the usual dishes apart from the matzoh crackers and some haroset.  I am rather relieved to be honest, as putting on a Seder style meal for congregations to introduce them to the idea of biblical feast days is a huge, giant, massive, ginormous undertaking.  I am not up to it this year to be honest.  

I picked up some lovely greeting cards at Paper Umbrella, including a box of cards based on the exotic textile works of Ayako Miyawaki.  Photos of her work graces the card fronts and I would love to see her actual works in various Japanese gallery collections.  Absolutely beautiful work......such interesting fabrics to create her designs.  I found some beautiful flower photo cards as well, some very pretty gift bags....it is such a great little niche boutique.

Tomorrow morning I am up really early to take a friend for cataract surgery.  A change in the original schedule means that I will miss the funeral I wanted to attend, but good friends suggested that they pick my husband up and take him.  I should have my friend home again in plenty of time to pick my husband up after the funeral reception that he assumes there is going to be. If there isn't one he will walk home quite happily.  It will be much warmer outside by then than the -20C we are going to wake up to tomorrow.  My car is already plugged in and I will flip on the power switch at bedtime.  I don't want to leave a very senior friend stranded when he has a surgery appointment. Thankfully I am usually awake most mornings at the time I need to wake up tomorrow and due to the schedule change I will be able to come home for breakfast in between the appointments.  It is all working out.  Yay!

After our errands my husband decided that since he'd had no lunch today....after his 11am sleep in this morning....we should stop at Bonzzini's for his late lunch. For me it was a very early dinner: the taco salad there comes in a taco bowl, so I didn't have to eat more carbs than the one carb that came in the spicy sauce I poured over my salad. My husband ate my taco bowl quite happily as it added some crunch to his delicious ham and turkey foccacia sandwich.  My salad was very tasty and now I won't need dinner tonight, only a closer to bedtime snack. YAY!

So it has been a good day. Tomorrow will be too, just kind of a busy day with lots of time sensitive appointments to get my friend to, plus a meeting of my own in the afternoon and then the Maundy Thursday church service in the evening.  My husband is going to an Anglican Good Friday morning service and I am not.  I will find one online to watch instead.  I am already looking forward to Easter Monday and our trip out of town to have a special dinner with friends.  Hoping the weather holds for our little drive...only forty minutes each way, but on the highway it can be a wicked drive if it snows and blows.  Have you see the photos of the heavy freezing rains in Ontario and Quebec today?  YIKES!  Praying for the people there with all the accidents, cancellation of public transportation and also massive power outages.  Just terrible.....

I am going to thaw some more ground bison this weekend and make a huge pot of chili.  Some friends have already asked us to bring over enough for dinner one night next week. They will provide the rice and salad and wine.  It will be a lot of fun. If I make and freeze a sufficient amount, I will be able to serve it to some company who are coming over for lunch next Friday.  Here's hoping.....

Well, must go and write a note to our son's Jewish girlfriend and wish her a wonderful Passover celebration with her family.

A Sad Deja Vu

Two weeks ago today my husband's brother in law ended his life via Medical Assistance In Dying.  We have been coping fairly well the past few days; having prayers with and from our church family and our friends has been a huge help to us.

However, I was not thinking about that this morning when I entered the same grocery store I was in when I received Ray's call that he was planning to end his life that same afternoon.  As soon as I walked into the store and looked into the produce section, where I had been shopping when the call to say goodbye came in, I felt myself tearing up.  I decided we could live without fresh produce for another few days because I couldn't bring myself to enter that section of the store.  I tried again at the end of my shopping trip, but nope, couldn't go there.  It was quite a surprise how hard the memories hit me and how strong my emotional reaction was.

I arrived home to the news that my husband had completely forgotten he had a diocesan clergy meeting today for the annual "Blessing of the Oils" over at the Cathedral today.  Fortunately I arrived home with the car in time for him to attend.  The Bishop at this service consecrates the annointing oil that all the priests will use this year.  Although my husband is attending the Baptist church regularly with me, for a number of personal reasons, he still officates at the occasional Anglican service and helps out with some of the weekly services at one of the Anglican churches here in the city.  (Thank you to those of you who were praying about his visit with the Bishop last week....it didn't go too badly.  She accepted his full retirement plans not to be involved in anything full or even part time and he was relieved that she made no comment in response to his admission he has been attending the Baptist church with me. Whew! She is a wonderful woman but has very different ideas than my husband's and that would make it difficult for them to work together I suspect.)  

So, I find myself with four hours unexpectedly to myself. Somehow the idea of using that time to do any serious form of housework is rather unappealing. I think I will find something even more mindless but definitely more fulfilling to do with the time.

Calm Day, Great Dinner!

Yesterday was a needed day of peace. We spent a bit of time in the morning just watching the snow falling. I did a couple of loads of laundry. I read a book. My husband wrote emails and did online research about building raised flower beds so he can help a gardening friend later this spring. There was only one phone call the entire day, from a comfortable, comforting friend, but there were no scammers, no medical offices, no calls from friends or family bearing more bad news. Wonderful. 

My husband made dinner last night, a casserole: layers of thinly sliced potatoes and egg plant, fresh herbs, ground bison and the veggie tomato sauce I made on the weekend, with shredded TexMex cheese browned over the top. It was delicious. Can’t wait to have leftovers today. 

Today my husband has a weekly men’s meeting and I am going to top up a few basic grocery items at the store. By 10am our commitments for today will be over. Maybe I will do some housework today....and maybe I won’t. 

We will need prayer to get through Thursday this week. We will be picking up a friend before 7am to take him for eye surgery, followed by a drive across the city to his ophthalmologist’s office for a post surgical checkup. Our prayer is that there will be time after we return him home to get to the funeral of a man my husband was privileged to baptize a few years ago. Then we have meetings right after lunch and after dinner there will be a Maundy Thursday service at our church. I have to work my mealtimes into that schedule. I guess I will be eating breakfast in the car so that I can cram lunch in between the funeral and my afternoon meeting. I don’t need my blood sugar to go out of whack on such a busy day. If I eat breakfast before 6:30am I will need to eat lunch right about the time the funeral is starting. 

So that is my big stress this week: sorting out mealtimes. Other people around the world are wondering if they will eat at all that day, if they will find a safe place to sleep, if they will escape the bombs of war, if they will ever see their families again.....yup, my stresses are somewhat ludicrous in comparison. 

More Good Neighbour News!

 It has been such a good news day in our little housing court!  This afternoon I was able to connect with our wonderful neighbour next door and found out she has also signed another lease that will take her within 3 months of the end of our next lease.  Looks like the maximum time we could have an issue with a less considerate neighbour will be the last 3 months of our stay here. YAY!  Thank you Lord!  What an amazing blessing.  So far the new neighbour on the other side of her place has not been making a lot of noise, so we are pleased for her. Long may it continue.

Our Ukrainian neighbour stopped in just before dinner tonight, bearing another jar of her amazing orange marmalade and also more good news: her mother was on the latest refugee flight into Saskatchewan!  Her mother got permission to join her here. She is ecstatic.  Once the final paperwork is cleared, mom will be allowed to leave the hotel that is housing the refugees from that filght, move in temporarily to her daughter's place and then the search can begin for a senior's housing unit for her.  How exciting for the family to have one more member safe from the war in the Ukraine.  Also her husband was able to get into a roofing course and in a few weeks' time will probably be able to leave his tile setting job for a more interesting line of work.  My husband was a roofer and is quite prepared to be of help as the man learns his new trade.

This past couple of days has been filled with good news from friends and neighbours.  Thank you Lord for all these interesting people who are a part of our lives. 

Looking Longingly At My Spring/Summer Clothes Bins

 I've been going up and down the basement stairs a lot today doing a few loads of laundry.  Everytime I go to the washing machine I pass by the shelving that stores my spring and summer clothes bins.  The more the sun came out today the more longing I experienced looking at those bins filled with my "happy seasons" clothes.  Aaaargh!  Usually this is the first week of the spring season weather-wise, at least it has been the last few years, and I am joyfully bringing those bins upstairs to my bedroom, sorting through them, while pulling out my fall and winter clothes to return to storage, then ironing and hanging up my spring and summer clothes in the closet.  Not this year....yikes....we have been VERY spoiled the past three or four springs I think.  In reality the weather we have right now is far more the norm here for this time of year.  Unfortunately....I WANT TO BE SPOILED AGAIN THIS YEAR!!!!  hohoho....no such luck!

It is so much fun to open the bins every spring and see the clothes in them. So many of them I forget about over the winter, so it is almost like getting a whole new wardrobe every spring....one case where having a poor memory is kind of a good thing!  It saves me a lot of money every seasonal clothes bin change because so many of the clothes seem "new all over again".  (thank you Yogi Berra for inspiring that expression hahaha)  

I was rather ruthless with my older clothes when I packed them away last spring. Many things went to the thrift store.  That is my plan this spring when it is finally time to put the winter clothes into storage....ruthless, ruthless, ruthless!!  Which items hung in the closet for the past five months without once being worn? Why didn't I wear them?  Did they not fit properly?  Quit trying to fool myself that they ever really will again and get rid of them.  Did I not have any matching tops/bottoms/sweaters/jackets for "that" particular item?  Then it is unlikely I will bother to find something matching next fall, so get rid of it.  Is the style too young/too old for me?  Well, my age group isn't going to get any younger and there is no point looking too old before my time, so get rid of it.  Does it need mending?  I can't sew. Get rid of it.  Does it need mending of the sort my husband can do on the sewing machine?  Well girl, you had all winter to get him to do it and you didn't even ask him.  That means you don't really want to wear it again. Get rid of it.

Getting rid of perfectly serviceable clothes items requires a good deal of honesty!  I have to ask myself if, in my heart of hearts, I truly do or don't want to wear, have any intention of wearing, said item ever again. If not, what right do I have to withhold it from being used by someone else who would look terrific in it, be thrilled to find it for a low price, is in desperate need of it?  None! No right at all.  It would be immoral for me to deliberately keep an article of clothing I have no intention of wearing when there are so many needy women searching through the thrift stores for possibly just exactly the clothing I am selfishly hoarding in my closet when I know darned well I won't ever wear it again. 

Yes, I know I have posted similar thoughts on this subject almost every change of season for the past few years, but that is just how long it has taken me to figure it out! Be patient with this slow learner.

Thank you.

THIS is SPRING??? I Beg To Differ!

 Wow, we have quite a bit of fresh snow with more forecast for this afternoon.  It is also quite cold today at -11C with even colder overnights most of the week.  Spring is late all across Canada this year. Even the BC coast has miserable weather to start the season.  It is going to -18C the night before we drive a friend for cataract surgery in the early morning hours later this week.  Are we going to have to plug in the car then? In April????  I don't remember the last time we had to plug it in this late in the first part of the year. However, we need to guarantee the car will start on time to get our friend to the surgery clinic. 

There is lots of good news though around here.  Yesterday at church it was announced that a friend from overseas, for who the church has been praying over the past several years, FINALLY received his Permanent Residency status a few days ago.  It was a long, long, long process, complicated by a situation back in his home country, but he has it now. There was a lot of clapping and cheering when the announcement was given.  We saw him last night at the Palm Sunday concert at the church and we have never seen him, or his Canadian wife, looking so relaxed and happy and excited.  As soon as his official PR card arrives in the mail they will be able to return to his home country for a visit. His parents are having milestone birthdays this year and he desperately wants to visit them. He has not seen them in person in years. Thank you Lord for this answer to prayer. So now our friend and his wife are taking on advocacy roles for other immigrants who are having a rough go with Canadian Immigration and how far behind it is with its process, as well the apparent general confusion in its department.  They are well aware of many people worldwide for who Canadian immigration paperwork is resulting in the breaking up of families, paticularly cases where small children have received permission to enter while their parents are still awaiting paperwork.  It is an absolute mess and many families are going to suffer from prolonged separations that could create horrible problems for them in the months and years to come.  It is an embarrassment to our country the way immigration policies and practises have created horrendous problems for refugees in the past few years.  It can't all be blamed on the pandemic!

The concert was well done last evening.  It was so much fun to see our new choir director at work, not letting the singers get away with any mistakes at the final rehearsal, but so gifted in the quiet way she spoke to each one needing help. There was such support given to the choir members and musicians and readers.  The concert was less than an hour and a quarter in length....something a few other choir directors and churches could learn from in my opinion.  The young kids there were home in plenty of time to wind down and sleep well before school today and the even younger ones were home before they had a chance to get bored and cranky.  The adults were able to get home before all the fresh now and rainfall froze into a sheet of ice.  Those who wanted to remain for snacks and fellowship had lots of time to enjoy that before the hour got too late.  A couple of professional instrumentalists were brought in and I particularly enjoyed the cellist playing The Theme from Shindler's List to represent the crucifixion scene.  The readings were short, the presentation was not hokey. (no young men in loin cloths attached to the large wooden cross in the front of the church....a picture that in no way represents the horrors of an actual crucifixion)  All in all I really enjoyed my time there, from rehearsal right through to the end of the performance. (During the rehearsal I also had time to re-read The Linden Tree and that was a treat.)

My husband was kind of geared up after the performance, he did well reading the part of Jesus, so he wanted to go out to eat something.  Here in Regina it is nearly impossible to find a restaurant or even a decent pub that is open and serving food after 9pm on a Sunday evening and it was already after 8pm as we left the church, plus we were afraid we would come out after a restaurant meal to discover a sea of ice on the ground.  We came home and my husband made us delicious grilled cheese sandwiches. We sliced up dill pickles to go with them and were very content chowing down in our own home while discussing the fun we had at the concert. 

Today was going to be a "slob" day for me, but by 11am, after a late start to my morning, I realized I was not feeling like staying in my jams all day.  So, I am off now to have a shower and wash my hair, put on clean clothes, do a couple of loads of laundry and prepare some bison meat for dinner tonight.  The appearance just now of a bit of sunshine is spurring me on to do some kind of meaningful activity today, even if it is only here at home.