Watching Out For The "Maple Bugs"!

 Despite our present temperature of +31C, the autumn is upon us.  I know this from the sheer number of brown, decaying leaves now covering the sidewalks and streets, from the disappearance of the geese that frequented this property for far too many months, from the white ears and paws that now decorate the hares around the property, from the uniting of the murders of crows,  AND as of yesterday, the appearance once again of the dreaded red and black winged "Maple Bugs" as we call boxelders around here.  They aren't all over the place at this point, but I have seen a fair number beginning to land on our screened windows in the past few days.  Making sure they don't come into our suite when we open the doors is always a good idea because once they have taken root inside the building it is nearly impossible to get rid of the darned things.  They survive the winters indoors quite handily!  I remember a few decades ago on the campus where my husband took his seminary courses when the public washrooms in the main church building became infested with them.  Every time I entered the space I was swatting and squashing and thinking most ungodly thoughts until I could accomplish my business and escape.  Just horrible.....the time I was staying in a motel not that far out of town here and had them marching by the dozens across my bed and face all night, finally being too tired to stay awake fighting them off any longer and awakening with one of the wee creatures sitting on my nose gazing into my eyes.  Aaaargh!!  So, I am being very careful to brush them away from the doorframes and checking my clothes once I have entered the suite just in case I have any tag alongs. Boxelders.....YUCK!!  They are harmless, but invasive and they can kick up quite an odor when enough of them are congregated in one place, particularly if one of them gets squashed.  Eek!!  

Our clothes for the trip have now been chosen, washed, ironed and hung up for packing tomorrow.  It feels good to have that done.  An issue with my husband's new cell phone was solved earlier today without having to rush over to a SaskTel outlet to stand in line for an hour to get it fixed. So grateful my husband can so often figure these technological things out for himself.  Our duffel bags are aired out and a few essentials are already inside them.  We will do our main packing tomorrow evening. The kids were in touch today to remind us that the United Nations General Assembly is meeting in NYC right now, so our taxi trip to their place may be somewhat convoluted due to major road closures to accommodate the Assembly.  Always something, right? haha

Tomorrow morning we will take the recycling....a HUGE bag....to the city bins and we will attend our group Bible study on James. It is too good to miss despite being a bit pressed for time.  Right now I am about to get myself ready to go and meet my cousin and her sister in law for a visit and meal out together.  It is going to be a long drive through rush hour traffic on the way there and through the setting sun on the way home, so I am not looking forward to that, but the visit will be sweet. 

My husband is over his excitement and stress related upset stomach that he suffered with most of yesterday and is currently meeting with a fellow who is suffering from advanced cancer.  Tomorrow he returns the chaplaincy phone to the Synod office to be passed on to the next volunteer clergy person in the lineup.  He had more calls in the past two weeks than he was expecting, but it all went well and he was able to juggle hospital visits with trip preparation and other important meetings and events.

Time to change my clothes and go to meet my cousin.  Hopefully I will drive well and we will all be safe as I navigate an area of the city I am completely unfamiliar with.  Had I more notice of the visit I would have driven the route in advance to familiarize myself with it, but since I couldn't do that...well....trusting the Lord to take care of the details and our safety.

The Ministry Of The Stick! HAHAHA!!

I seem to have a new "ministry" these days....sort of an elderly "influencer" sort of thing. hahaha

A few days ago I posted about a friend getting inspired to do some overdue wall washing because I had posted one day about some housework here.  Then on Sunday another such event occurred when a much older friend of mine, who has been in pain for months with a deteriorating knee and hip, came up to me in church and informed me that she had been putting off purchasing a cane for herself...a "stick" as she calls it.....until she saw me using mine at church a few times.  She decided that using a cane can still be sufficiently "elegant", (and she is a marvellously fashionable clothes horse at the age of 88), after watching me use mine and realizing that just because a woman is using a "stick" for health reasons doesn't mean that woman has to stop dressing well, doing her hair as usual, putting on makeup and whatever "negative else" she was formerly associating with cane useage.  SO, last week she went to her doctor and got a form to purchase a proper medical cane from the Health Aids department at her pharmacy, found a cane she likes and purchased it.  I am SO PROUD of her.  She has struggled terribly with the idea of aging and mobility issues but seems to be understanding that there are helps available and is now not as loathe to start using them.  YAY!!  So, my days of public ministry may be long over, but it is really fun to know I can still help people in all kinds of little ways. I feel less useless when things like this occur.  Thank you Lord that my friend got some badly needed help.

Yesterday was a very good day of helping as well.  Friends from church were having a family funeral and needed help with ushers and kitchen workers.  My husband is very good at ushering, so while he was doing that I was working with other ladies in the kitchen getting set up for the reception afterward.  It was a lot of fun, cleaning up afterward went quickly with so many helpers and my husband and I ended our service by delivering all the tablecloths to the dry cleaner on our way home.  So happy there was time to help at the funeral during this very busy week of getting ready to travel...especially when I seem to be so far behind!!  

I am discovering new things about my meal times that I think could help my blood sugar and weight considerably, BUT it is going to be difficult to implement them on a regular basis!!  Prayers for me as you are so led, that somehow I can make this possible new meal schedule work!!

Yesterday we had to be at the church to get set up right as I should have been eating lunch, so I knew I would have to do something different on the scheduling for my meals.  I decided finally that I could make myself wait and eat a very late breakfast and then have Lupper after we were done at the church.  As it happened my husband had a half dozen apples that needed to be used, so he decided he would make a small phankuken for us for our "brunch".  At 9am I had a glass of milk...only 1 carb unit, because I was getting hungry.  By the time my husband was finished repairing a mistake  he made with his recipe, it was 11:30am by the time I actually ate anything. Other than feeling a bit of low sugar tiredness I was fine and enjoyed my 2 carb serving of the phankuken.  We were at the church by 12:30pm and left again around 4pm.  When the family had been served their reception food, I nabbed a couple of strawberries for myself because I wasn't sure how long we would be there.  We were both extremely hungry by the time we dropped off the tablecloths for cleaning, so headed over to Bonzzini's.  My husband enjoyed his 8 inch pizza and caesar salad while I ordered a chicken wrap.  When our food arrived I pulled the chicken and salad out of the whole wheat flour wrap and gave the wrap to my husband to wrap around his pizza  slices....He likes to wrap pizza slices in something else so he doesn't end up with toppings and tomato sauce all over his hands and shirt. hahaha  I ate the large amount of chicken salad filling along with part of the side of onion rings...again my husband is so happy to assist me in finishing what I can't eat. haha  At 9:30pm I ate one slice of whole wheat bread with a slice of low fat cheese and a half carb unit of yogurt.  I slept better last night than I have in several weeks of trying to keep going on my "needed" 3 meals a day, day after day after day after week after week and knowing I have just not been feeling perfectly fine for a couple of months, despite my blood sugar staying stable and within range.  I got looking back at my food diary and realized that eating my evening meal between 4 and 5pm with a later breakfast in the morning, between 10 and 11am and a slice of bread and cheese in the late evening has produced this same result each time.  So now....how do I stick to a routine of brunch and lupper as a daily habit long term?  I am looking very much forward to figuring that out!  Having lots of leftovers in the refrigerator has helped with that in the past, so I think once we are home again I will return to my former habit of doing a large cook on either Sunday afternoon or Monday and then having lots of leftovers for the following two or three days. We shall see how it goes.  It may be easier in NYC because my son and late breakfasts with earlier dinners and no discernable lunch all go together and have for years.  

Of course since I am already behind on getting ready to go, now all manner of other things are getting set up this week that I really can't say no to very easily.  I just got a call from a senior friend who desperately wants to have a short visit with me before I leave. So, since I am going to be fairly near her place when I have my hair cut right after lunch I will stop in for an hour to see her.  I can't say no.  I thought I was ahead of the game by cancelling my weekly coffee visit to give myself more time to get packed up, but then my cousin...the only one of many who is in touch with me regularly.....called to say she will be in town tomorrow and could I pick her and her sister in law up so we could go out to dinner together tomorrow evening. Again, I can't say no...she is family, one of the few I have left that I have a real relationship with.  hahaha My husband has had more phone calls from the hospitals in the past two weeks with Anglican patients wanting pastoral care than any of the other priests have had in several months of carrying around the chaplaincy emergency phone for their "tour of duty". hahaha  He has another pastoral visit tomorrow afternoon....naturally....hahaha. It never rains but it pours.

I am grateful that I was able to get to the bank right as it opened this morning to get done what needed to be done before we can go away. I am grateful that the weather is wonderful this week...windy of course, but that is just the way it is on the prairies, particularly during seasonal changes.  I am grateful that my decisions for clothes to take south are coming together nicely. I am grateful I was able to start the laundry today and will get it done around the haircut and visiting my friend so I can iron tomorrow morning.  I am grateful that there have been no conflicts, yet anyway, that have arisen regarding when each of us needs to use the car this week.  I am grateful that my new beautiful yellow agate necklace arrived today from Healing Earth Works in Victoria and that my husband was here to sign for it.  I am grateful that I was able to spent 2 consecutive hours on my feet for the funeral reception yesterday with very few repercussions.

My prayer request is for my husband today: he has not been able to find his prescription reading glasses for the past ten days or so. He cannot remember for sure where he last used them so has been relying on some drug store cheapies to keep him going, but I am not sure that is going to keep working well for him for much longer.  We have contacted all but one of the places he has been to away from home over the past two weeks and no one has seen his glasses. Tomorrow morning he will have the opportunity to return to the one other place they MAY have been left, but it is possible they will not still be there.  We continue to think they are simply lost somewhere in our suite, but we have torn this place apart searching and nothing yet. Sigh....always something when we are trying to get away.

Okay, time to change the laundry over. Gotta run. Love you all. Thanks for your prayers and concern and care.

FINALLY Getting Prepared To Go!

I had a difficult time over the summer months conceiving the idea of travelling in the near future.  Then the idea came to fruition and flights and accommodation were booked.  Since then though I haven't been able to grasp the reality of going on our upcoming short trip.

Yesterday evening something finally clicked, so I wiped out my duffle bag, set out my "personals" for packing, chose the outfits I will need and set them aside on the clothes rack. This morning I went to the store and purchased travel sized hair and personal hygiene products.  After lunch I will go and start packing up those things as this coming week is far too busy with funerals and hair appointments and fellowship groups and and and and...

I think I will be so tired that by the time we have to go VERY EARLY to the airport on our flight day that I may even fall asleep on the plane to pass the time.  Flying is not my favourite mode of transportation so am already praying that everything goes smoothly, that there are no significant delays, that there isn't too much turbulence, that the wheelchair I have booked in Minneapolis will be available as planned, that our son will actually remember we are arriving that day and what time we should be showing up at his place.....  THERE, that is my full prayer request for my caring prayer warriors.  You have "flown" with me before, so you know the drill!  hahahahaha

I think I finally have my head in the Imminent Travel Game.

Feasting With Friends Last Weekend

Last weekend after church friends invited us to their house for one of their amazing bbq meals. Dell and our host built this particular bbq cooker together last summer and it is such a treat to be able to enjoy the wonderful meals our hosts prepare on it.  YUMMY!!!!!

 

Our feast consisted of homemade bread and Italian cheese, followed by bbq'd sausage, bratwurst, elephant garlic cloves, chicken wings, bacon, green beans, potato slices and onions.

It was utterly delicious!!!!! 😋 Thank you wonderful friends! We have been to hell and back together over the years and we continue to support and care for each other.  God is good. 

A Nearly Perfect Autumn Day For Me Here!

 I love these early autumn days!!  There are still plenty of green leaves remaining on the trees with only a few dead yellowish brown drought damaged leaves on the ground so far.  The sky is somewhat overcast in between bouts of sunshine but the breeze is mild and the temperature is perfect at about +17C.  The wasps have settled down considerably in our area, the lawns are still mostly green. I need longer sleeves on my shirts, but so far still do not need a jacket or closed toe shoes. Today the whole day thus far is like a "happy place" for me.

My friend came over for tea this morning and we had a wonderful visit. My husband has had doctors' appointments and today is a mandatory Clergy Day, so he has had the car. My friend was fortunate to have her family car today and over she came for our weekly visit that would have been completely derailed if it had been dependent on me to be the driver this week.  

This is the first day in quite some time that I have had several consecutive hours on my own. I am really enjoying it.  I took my time making my lunch and eating it in front of the television.  I have just returned from a decently long post-prandial walk over to the grocery store for some items and an extended route return.  I am going to watch the finale of a cooking show on tv that I enjoy....I still have a couple of hours left on my own to totally relax. We have yummy pork loin leftovers for dinner....yup, I am truly enjoying this day.

To add to my own joy, a friend phoned me to say it appears that she just may have a new position at her work that popped up recently at a time when a change of position in her office is definitely warranted. Many months of prayer have gone into the possibility of her being able to make this change and as of today it is looking pretty good for her. I do pray it works out. It is so difficult watching friends suffer in their careers....been there, done that....it is NASTY.  Lord, hear our prayer for her. Thank you and amen.

Received an unexpected invitation to meet friends tomorrow evening for dinner at DarBar.  I know we were there only a few days ago, but I never seem to tire of their meals and the variety is so good that there is always something new to try. YIPPEE!!! Going with dear friends makes the whole idea super sweet.

The Family Jeweller!

My husband's cousin is a lapadarist based out of Victoria BC.  I have ordered numerous pieces of jewellery from her. She specialises in pendants, earrings and rings made from Canadian gemstones and rocks; she cuts, polishes and places them in beautiful settings. She also is selling a wide range of sterling silver and gold chains.  I have to admit I have a LOT of her pieces and love every one of them.  Her new website includes the shipping and insurance as well and is very easy to use.  I just ordered myself another pendant....

Take a look and enjoy:

  www.healingearthworksbylaura.com

 
https://www.instagram.com/p/DACw0n5J6s6/?igsh=aXN0djcwNzcwdno0

An Unexpected Acceptance!!

Our son called us rather early this morning to give us some most unexpected news.

A few months ago he was selected to be one of several artists asked to submit a proposal for a public outdoor art installation for a new subdivision being built in a west coast city where he has had art exhibitions in the past.  He was shocked, assumed it wasn't worth his time because he has never done an outdoor art installation before and was certain he would never be chosen as some of the others asked to submit are experienced in doing such works.  His dad and I kind of talked him into giving it a try so he could learn new things and have at least a glimmer of a chance to do something completely different.  When he found out what the committee was going to pay him for submitting the proposal he decided he might as well at least try doing the submission.  It was a tough job.  He had to learn how to work within the many parameters set up by the city in question, what materials to use, how to work with the fabricators that would be doing the actual work, what materials would work for outdoor art, how to keep it low maintenance for long term, how to pay those involved in actually constructing the work, etc. etc. etc. etc.  A few times he wanted to throw up his hands in frustration and give up.  FINALLY he got his proposal submitted right at the deadline...only a week or two ago.

Yesterday he got the news that his proposal has been accepted and the committee is "over the moon" about his concept for this artwork.  I don't know who is more shocked: him, or us!  We have been feeling terrible about urging him to take on such an intense learning experience as we have watched him, "Mr. Perfectionist", figuring out all these strange new ways of doing his art.  The entire project will now take about two years to be completed and installed....while his involvement will be mostly from a distance at first, he is likely going to have to make a few trips to the west coast along the way and he is going to have to figure out how NOT to put more energy and work and stress into the rest of this project than he is going to be paid for it in the end.  He is like his father when it comes to working: give it your all....and then some....and then some more....and some more.....and lose out on the benefit of the profits you eventually end up with because you have made yourself so ill from all the extra and often unnecessary extra time and effort you put into it.  I think this will be our most ongoing and consistent prayer for him as he faces the ups and downs that such a contracted project entails.

So, we are all rather thrilled about this, but also feeling some trepidation about it. Once that contract is signed next week there is no going back!  Thank you, those of you who pray for him, for thinking of him over the next few months as he sorts all this out.

CONGRATULATIONS SON!  SURPRISE!!!!!  😂 Who'd a thunk it, right???? Whoa.......

With A WOOF WOOF Here And A WOOF WOOF There....

 We had a wonderful time at my walking partner's place last evening, chatting with  her visiting parents and feasting on her husband's incredible "fun potatoes" and BBQ'd pork chops with delicious brushed on curry and mango and pineapple curry rubs....just marvellous.  I took the veggies, peas and broccoli and cauliflower and diced onion conglomeration in a mixed cheese and butter sauce that seemed tasty enough.  There was none left by the end of dinner so I think that is a positive sign. YAY!  Even my vegetable detesting hostess tried a  mouthful or two, hahaha.  

However, last evening we both got reading ourselves to sleep but the sleep part didn't happen for either of us until well after midnight.  No worries, we thought.  We can sleep in a bit in the morning, we thought.  Wow...did we ever "thought" wrongly!!!  At about 7:30am the maintenance crew from our complex arrived to try to do (minimal) repairs to the sagging, wind blown partition that separates our part of the porch from our neighbours' side. ( One hint fellas: the handful of screws you drilled into the deck railing to help resecure the partition may help for a few months, but the coat of watery paint you brushed over the rotting wood isn't going to help anything at all.)  Of course the presence of strangers set off the barking, woofing, LOUD dog next door and he didn't stop until sometime after 9am.  The one member of the family that actually convinces the poor old mutt to be quiet had long since departed for work and the woman of the house is useless when it comes to making the dog obey. The dog didn't really stop barking for nearly two  hours straight.  Sigh.....WOW ARE WE EVER TIRED TODAY!!!   I feel like there is a cloud wrapped around my brain and like I have been punched in both eyes.  My husband isn't feeling a whole lot better, so we cancelled our attendance at the seniors' hymn sing at the church this afternoon.  We are not singers at this point in our lives, but our new Nigerian church organist was going to give a talk about his life and how he ended up in Canada etc. and we are very disappointed to miss that, but I HAD to go and get the groceries I was too groggy to pick up this morning as planned.  We dragged around here all morning.  I may have been able to get myself ready to go shopping, but discovered that some bananas I have had sitting in the kitchen fruit basket had reached an "end of edible  life" stage, so I made a large banana loaf instead.  After a desultory lunch of cheese bread and a slice of banana loaf, I finally got myself showered and dressed and off to the grocery store.  SO none of my ironing has been done today as I had hoped.  Oh well.  Yes, there is still time to press a few things before dinner, but I am going to have another nap instead so I can go with my husband to one of our fellowship groups tonight....I really really look forward to this one as it only meets once a month, so it is a very special time with special church friends.

Speaking of that nap....yawn....catch ya'll later.....

A Laid Back West Coast Kind Of Afternoon

It has been a busy couple of days with this and that and the other thing, all happy things.

My husband preached yesterday at the church who sponsored his ordination a few years ago and he had a wonderful time meeting with some of the parishioners we know who are still there.  Friends from here also appeared in the congregation unexpectedly so that was also a special treat.  The church he preached at is currently seeking a new priest and my husband chuckled when one of the older members of the congregation asked one of the other members, "Why can't we just hire this guy? I like this guy." hahaha  Cute.....

Coffee time after church was a lot of fun because one of our visiting friends has a long time Baptist background, so she was filled with questions about the liturgy and the symbolism.  Explaining it all to her was not only fun, but it was good for us to also have to rethink the answers....do we still know what we are doing in these services or, in our own minds, have the reasons disappeared over the years?

There were some other things needing to be attended to but eventually we arrived at the home of our luncheon hosts. Talk about relaxing, laid back, west coast vibes:  the hors d'oeuvres were finally ready almost an hour after we arrived, then it was another nearly two hours before the main meal was served, then a little walk around their neighbourhood with their scary looking but gentle as a lamb dog, then dessert on into the evening.  We were SO relaxed we probably should have just taken a hotel there for the night instead of driving home. hahaha My husband was in bed and asleep ten minutes after we walked back inside our place and he slept for 12 and a half hours!!  I only managed a bit less than half of that time so I still feel kind of drugged out due to the diabetes disrupting sort of eating schedule, but other than that I am fine. My blood sugar count is on track today.  It was the kind of uber relaxed day we hadn't realized we needed, so we are very happy for the way things turned out even though it made us four or five hours later returning home than we planned for.

This morning I was awake a little after 5am due to some unusual outside noises, so I watched our own church service from yesterday online. By what I could see on the camera it appears that both the church we attended and our own church were rather down in terms of attendance.  Looking at who was missing in both places we suspect many people took advantage of this final very warm weekend to get away one last time as a finale to the summer travel season.  

Ran errands all morning and ended up taking advantage of a clothing sale I wasn't even looking for, but that called my name as I passed the store.....75% off on selected items, so I selected 4 fold over neck sleeveless tops that go so well under round necked winter sweaters and under suit jackets, as well as a spring/summer pant suit in a darker jade green that I will get a couple of wearings in still this year before it is put away with the spring summer clothes to surprise me when I open up those bins next April. I also got a lovely heavy weight but still somewhat summery looking dress/overshirt that I can take on our trip as it will pair well with some skinny pants I want to take. Both items will be super easy to pack in my tiny travel bag and will not wrinkle! Perfect.

Tomorrow is major ironing day now that I have these new items that need the packing creases removed.  I may make my present ironing load last over 2 days so I don't exhaust myself.

I just finished preparing a veggie casserole to take with us to our friends' place tonight for dinner.  Easy peasy and as far as I can tell it tastes pretty darned good.

Hope you are enjoying a summery day today!

Trying To Plan Ahead....Aaaargh!!

 So happy to have done the laundry today.  I have little ironing to do because most of the clothes I washed are specifically summer clothes so since I won't be wearing them again they can go directly into the storage bins.  I will spend my ironing time next week ironing the rest of my winter turtlenecked tops.  The last winter ironing project will be heavy pants, but they can wait for awhile yet.  There is still time to wear autumn weight pants before the snow arrives.

I got a bit of a jolt just now when I looked at the current long term weather forecast for NYC....looks like their daytime highs will still be around the +26C mark most of the days we will be there.  Yikes...maybe I will have to iron a few more summer tops and pants after all for that trip.  Dang it! However, I just went through the rest of the summer tops hanging on my clothes rack and I think they will be sufficient for the trip.  I just have to coordinate the pants a bit differently than I planned originally, but that is easy enough to do. I think a couple of pair of lightweight summer jeans will do most days with a nicer outfit for anything we may do where jeans are inappropriate. I will take a pair of good walking sandals and wear my heavier shoes on the plane. There...I think I have myself more or less organized now.  hahaha  AND when the time comes to pack it will all change...of course....hohoho!

As I was sorting through the summer clothes laundry today and putting things away into storage I was looking at the drop in temperature longer term here and not considering the NYC weather. Good thing I checked it.  Our final days with +26C here are tomorrow and the following 2 days, then we drop back to an average of +19C or so longer term. 

14 Blocks....Happy Happy Joy Joy!!

I am delighted just at this moment!  Despite interruption after interruption this afternoon as I was trying to complete my tasks and go for a walk, I DID finally get outside and managed to increase my walking distance to 14 blocks!  YES!!!  My degenerating hip let me know it was starting to get slightly irritated less than half a block from home, so I am pretty happy right now.  14 blocks will now be my go to number to accomplish. I still have two weeks to prep for our trip by lengthening my walking distance,  so should be in much better shape for some south of the border walking by the time we leave.

Thank you Lord and faithful praying friends.

Today for the first time since mid April I had to put on a long sleeved cardigan over my short sleeved top to walk outside. The wind is chilly and the clouds in the sky are the colour of winter snow bearing clouds. Yukko!!!  I am guessing that by the end of this month it may be too cold to have bare feet and wear sandals to go walking.  So, I am checking out my shoe and boot collection.  Looks like there is nothing new I will need this fall and winter. YAY!!

In Preparation For Winter Ailments.....

....I have started wiping down my grocery items again when I arrive home from the store.  We have several friends who have developed serious respiratory illnesses in recent weeks and it is going to be time for our new Covid boosters, hopefully in the next couple of months.  We are being overly cautious between now and our trip south but I think it is worth it.  Assuming we get as far as actually boarding the plane to go, we will be wearing masks again inflight and in the boarding lounges.  Likely we will be the only ones, but it has certainly paid off for us over the past few trips away.  Maybe it is a bit of going overboard, but we don't care.  We both have enough other health issues going on at present that we don't want to do battle with a respiratory illness as well if we can avoid that.

We had fun this morning shopping at a new to us place: Lakeview Fine Foods.  My husband had to drive over that way this morning to pick up the hospital chaplaincy phone for his annual two weeks of providing pastoral visiting to any of the Anglicans who may find themselves in the hospital over the next couple of weeks and who want a pastoral visit and/or a home communion. Along the route we passed Lakeview Fine Foods and decided to stop in for a boo around the place.  I was in there once about 4 years ago but haven't had reason to return. Apparently it has changed hands since then and there is far more stock than I remember.  While the prices on some items are understandably higher than in the large stores, we were amazed at how much lower the prices were on some of the items we use regularly!! So, we stocked up on a few things and will likely return there sometime soon to restock.  It is a small neighbourhood grocery store that carries a surprising amount of product for the space available.

Yesterday morning coffee time with my friend was particularly nice:  there were only 2 other tables of patrons in the small space of the coffee bar so we could talk without shouting and discuss a few personally sensitive issues without being overheard.  The rain outside perhaps kept some people away, but whatever the cause of the lack of customers, we certainly took advantage of it and enjoyed ourselves.   

Then I raced home to throw some lunch together and finish preparing for our afternoon fellowship group to come over for the first meeting post summer holidays.  Because the weather had still been very hot the previous day I bowed out of baking for the group and instead picked up some squares and other goodies at a bakery.  My husband wrapped up our two coffee carafes and drove to a nearby coffee bar to have them filled...a regular and a decaf coffee.  He fired up his wonderful Japanese water heater for the tea drinkers so they could have a constant supply of perfectly heated water for seconds on their tea.  Our group leader, a retired pastor, decided it was time for us to study the Book of James and it is going to be wonderful. We only got to the fifth verse of Chapter One before we ran out of time, so the discussion is obviously going to be as interesting as the actual lesson each meeting.  I am very excited about this.....the teachings on joy in the midst of trials will be an excellent reminder to me of the way God has worked in all of our previous times of trial, plus the teaching on wisdom is something I am in desperate need of these days it seems.  Perfect timing for me!  Several of the members were unable to attend this time so it made our limited seating space comfortable, we had enough chairs, it was not too warm or cold of a day so the temperature in here stayed bearable for one and all.  There was a good feeling of coziness and peace all afternoon.  So grateful for that.

This afternoon I plan to go for my daily walk around the block, but I am going to add another 2 blocks into the route.  I want to be as strong as I can be before we leave for NY.

Tomorrow will be laundry day....a perfect chore while my husband is spending his day tweaking and finalizing his sermon for Sunday morning.  I am here to proof read, or suggest, or listen while still getting an important household task accomplished.

We are excited about the Sunday service.  We are heading to a church out of town that is filled with old friends and we already have a lunch invitation from some of our most dear, dear friends that we are really looking forward to seeing.

The next night is dinner at the home of other very dear friends who have parents visiting from way up north. We have met them several times and clicked well enough that at one point a few years ago when their diocese was looking for a new bishop, they thought my husband should apply. How can we not love such blessed folk, right? hahaha

The best part of the end of summer, that keeps the arrival of autumn and the signaling of winter bearable, is that life returns to comfortable routines of church meetings, dinners and lunches with friends, preparing supplies for the winter hunkering down, preparing to exchange wardrobe items from summer to winter, getting in those last walks out of doors before the ice arrives and generally determining to get the most out of every single remaining snowfree day.  I love this time of year!  My favourite daytime high temperatures are now at my own comfortable norm: +18C to about +26C at most.  Perfect!!  A few thundershowers add interest to the evenings.  I feel energized with the lower temperatures.  I think my happy time of year has begun extending into September.

 

As A Citizen Of The World.....

 ....I should likely be watching the US Presidential Debate this evening and I tried, really I did. I lasted nearly 40 minutes and gave up because what I heard was the same old depressing, frightening rhetoric I heard during the last presidential election from one of the candidates and a somewhat repititious set of speeches from the other, obviously somewhat nervous candidate and as I watched my heart sank lower and lower.  I know if I watch the rest of it I will be too depressed to sleep tonight and I have a lot to do tomorrow so I need my rest. I will save my times of courting politics based depression for the debates and rhetoric from our own Canadian politicians prior to our own next federal election, thank you very much.  

Decided this morning to do my winter/summer clothes exchange in fits and starts this autumn. Today I took a few summer items that won't be worn again this year and exchanged them in the garment tubs for the same number of fall/early winter articles of clothing, ironed those and got them hung up in the closet.  As the temperatures begin dropping in the next couple of weeks or so, I will continue exchanging and ironing a few items here and there, thus avoiding my annual fall and winter clothes ironing extravaganza that generally goes on for 3 days in a row, leaving me exhausted.  

My planned afternoon walk was scuttled when my next door neighbour dropped in for a spontaneous visit, but that was okay.  I got lots of indoor exercise today, shuttled a few loads of garbage out to the bins, the hour of ironing of course and more time than usual on my feet preparing both lunch and dinner and getting all the dishes washed.  It was a good day as far as accomplishing home chores and I am very glad of that.

Tomorrow I need to get some baking done for an afternoon of visiting with friends the following day.  I don't want to miss my weekly morning coffee with my friend that same day, so will do all the prep tomorrow and keep that morning free.  YAY!  Planning...that is what I need to do more of: advance planning!!! Oh, I am so bad at that.....

Tonight we will start watching the September sumo tournament from Tokyo. It began a couple of nights ago and NHK has started putting each night's bouts on their website for downloading...It's SUMO time!

Get More Exercise They Said....It Will Be Good For You They Said....

 "They" in this case refers to the people I was in contact recently at a private surgical facility in another province. "They" have been most helpful, but I am not yet prepared to spend the approximately thirty thousand dollars it would cost me to have the surgery there.  I could do it, but am not sure it is the wisest thing to do just yet....it will depend on how much pain and the amount of disability I am experiencing when I meet with the surgeon here and what kind of wait time for local surgery he is going to give me....so private health care is still a possibility, but a very slim one.  I am grateful for the help I have received from the people at the place I contacted.

So, today I decided it is time to bite the bullet and get my muscles in better shape for more walking when we head south in three weeks.  I have had some short walks, but today I decided to walk around the outer perimeter of our housing project, about a 10 block round trip. I survived just fine, although I imagine my hip will give me a tough time when I am trying to fall asleep this evening.  I will continue with the ten block distance for a couple of days and then see if I can increase the distance by a couple of blocks and go from there.  My son is so worried about me that he is considering hiring a wheelchair to use the entire time we are visiting him, but  I think I was able to allay his worst fears when we spoke today.  I will certainly rent a wheelchair at the Museum of Modern Art and to visit Prospect Park for a day, but I think taxis can be hired if necessary to travel to and from other places far away from where we will be staying.  There is a subway station and a bus stop right outside our accommodation, so that will reduce the number of taxis required.  It is all good and I am so happy I learned that walking more, without causing pain at the time of course, is actually better for me than sitting around for the next year or more.  Hallelujah!!!  God bless those medical folk at the private clinic.  My blood sugar count will be happy too!!

Minty Fresh!!

I love going to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned.  It is all I can do to stay awake as I lie back relaxing in the big, comfy chair getting my mouth all tidied up for another six months.  My husband has a somewhat less delightful experience as he always comes away feeling vaguely faint and tired out, but today he is recovering quite well and was able to come with me to complete a few simple errands before we got home.  This session included our annual checkups and we both passed with ease.  Often I am getting booked in for some kind of procedure in the coming weeks, but this last couple of checkups have gone well, nothing new to deal with. YAY!! Now it is time for lunch and a couple of more errands afterward.  I love busy Mondays for some reason.  Sitting around on a Monday is kind of irritating....a new week, want to get going, want to do things and make arrangements to see friends and and and and....so, this Monday is about perfect for me.  Our SaskTel mobile bill is incorrect once again, so my husband gets the joy of trying to deal with that this time around.  Maybe tomorrow morning?  Today is busy enough.

Waaaaahhhh, I Broke My Favourite Ceramic Bowl!!!

I am so sad and so frustrated by my own clumsiness!  I wanted to have a salad for lunch today, so I pulled my favourite mauve pottery bowl from the cupboard, didn't get sufficient grip on it as I put it down on the counter, missed the edge of the counter with one side of the bowl and as I let go it crashed to the floor and shattered. Sigh.....  I rarely feel sadness when I break or lose or give away something I have enjoyed, but I do feel very sad about losing this bowl due to it being my very own fault.  The deep lilac colour is one of my favourite accent colours and I have enjoyed the bowl for the past several years after finding it in a pottery gift shop in BC.  Oh well, one less bowl to pack and move when the time eventually comes, but I am still sad to lose something I liked so very much.  I forgot to check my grip strength before I put the bowl down, so there you go.....

I am very happy that today and tomorrow appear to be the last days of our mini heat wave of the past week.  It is going to be about +34C today and tomorrow, then for the following ten days the daytime high is supposed to drop between about 7 and 10 degrees. YAY!  We will have a proper autumn at that rate.  May it be very, very prolonged (!!!!!) since this coming winter is supposed to be terribly cold and snowy.  

My husband had kind of a bad sleep last night due to a resurgence of an old tummy issue, so we decided he needed to get sleep more than we needed to attend church in person.  He had a wonderful sleep until after 12 noon and I watched our church service on Zoom!  One of the songs that was sung is an oldtime gospel favourite of mine, "We'll Understand It Better By and By".  I was trying, as I waited for that song to come up on the roster, to imagine our particular well educated, well heeled, older congregation swinging along gospel style to such a song, but they did a great job of it.  What fun!!! haha!   I liked the way our pastor shared that while we may have our own definition of success and wonder if we have missed God's plan for our life when we experience loss and illness and financial crisis, God's overall plan for everyone is encapsulated in the life of Jesus: he grew from childhood to manhood, he worked and ministered, he suffered, he died and he was resurrected.  That is the basic plan for all believers and loss, illness and other crises are built into the life on earth circumstance.  It is a good counterbalance for some of my friends' continued belief in a prosperity gospel that flies in the face or earthly reality. I have examined that set of beliefs very closely over many years, made an attempt to live that way, but found it wasn't a realistic lifestyle for me. 

I am enjoying wearing a skort outfit a friend in AB gave me on our holiday there this summer.  I love the elephants pattern on the skort and the top is such a great match for one of the highlight colours in the skort.  I have been wearing my husband's old wooden Indian made hippie beads with the outfit.  I have decided I miss the skorts that were so popular when I was growing up in the 1960's and wish they could make more of a comeback nowadays!  (or "nowsaday" as one of my French Canadian friends says...how adorable.  AND I love one of my Indian friends who always talks about God's "childrens" and about getting new shoes for his "feets".  English is such a fun language and I think Japlish is my favourite version of it. hahaha)

Tomorrow morning my husband and I are heading to the dentist to have our teeth cleaned.  I am so relieved that when I told my husband, after his first excruciatingly painful cleaning a few years ago after many years of inadequate dental work, that his reaction to the procedure would improve with regular 6 month cleanings has turned out to be the case~yay!

It has been quite a day for marathons and fundraising by various organizations here today.  The Queen City Marathon completed its major run of the year this morning and it was fun seeing the various runners, walkers, limpers, stroller pushers and stragglers passing by for a couple of hours.  My friend who has survived more than 5 years now after a bad bout with ovarian cancer is taking part in that organization's fundraising walk this afternoon.  It seems great strides are now being made by researchers into that hideous form of cancer and I pray along with the members of that organization for more breakthroughs in diagnosis and treatment.

I am devising a plan to do more outdoor exercising as soon as the heat wave subsides.  I have been too timid apparently with my walking, so am going to work into a bit more of it slowly and carefully, BUT more consistently.  My thigh muscles need it, the degenerating joint needs it and my blood sugar definitely needs it as well.  Wish me well! Thanks!!

Modern Poetry About Modern Art (Giggle......)

 

So, My Boring Housework Posts Have Actually Inspired Someone…..

 …..to wash all the walls in her house!! Take that boring blog disparagers, take that!! Nyaa Ha Ha!!!! 😆 

Comparing Meals And Restaurants Is Fun!!

I have had three restaurant meals in three days and that has been a lot of fun for me, the non-cook!! (Thank you Lord for takeout boxes!)  Thursday my friend and I ended up at the north side Earl's for lunch and it was tasty enough for the price, last night my husband was craving pizza after a very busy day and today another friend and I ended up back at our favourite DarBar for Indian food.

My husband and I have discovered we are both having food sensitivity reactions to our beloved Red Swan pizzas, waaaaaah, so last night we decided to try a different place we have never had food from before.  We ordered two medium pizzas from Triple 8.  Weeeelllll, there was no skimping on the amount of toppings and both pizzas were perfectly cooked, but unfortunately there was no flavour in the pizza sauce.  We ended up lifting up the toppings with forks as best we could and spooning on a bit of salsa to get some more flavour.  Too bad because outwardly the pizzas were perfection and the toppings themselves were very tasty.  However, a flavourless sauce doesn't do well on any pizza.  We also ordered a caesar salad and that was a very expensive disappointment.  At $12.95 it consisted of a carton of very fresh, lovely romaine lettuce, enough for two people to have a somewhat reasonably sized salad, some little croutons and then a very large carton of dressing....while the freshness of the lettuce was particularly appreciated, the dressing is hard to describe.  It was the colour of French dressing and was a bit less thick than the paste you make for kids to do craft projects with. Like the pizza sauce the flavour had taken a holiday. Too bad because the lettuce was so perfect. So, some things good and some things unbelievably not so good.  I would be willing to try the pizza again sometime, but will never order the caesar salad. Yikes!

Today my friend and I were keen to try a different Indian restaurant that we haven't been to since it changed hands a couple of years ago.  However, we arrived to discover that the restaurant wasn't going to open for another half hour, so we chose to head over to our old favourite DarBar.  As usual the food was so good, the service stellar with friendly staff.  In terms of food quality and amount per meal compared with the price per meal, it is still the best deal in town as far as we are concerned, particuarly for the lunch platters.  The price per platter has only gone up two dollars since they were introduced a year or so prior to Covid closures back in 2020.  At $13.99 per platter plus tax, you get plenty of naan and rice, a samosa, green salad, rice pudding or gulab jamin or...., raita, chick pea stew and a meat dish.  Fantastic!  The portions are not huge, but there is no skimping either. I always have enough to bring home a second small meal afterward.  Delicious!  I admit I am kind of happy that our attempt to go elsewhere today didn't pan out.  My friend loves DarBar as well so she was just as happy too.  Another day we will try Indian food elsewhere.

Yesterday I cleaned the entire suite except for the living room.  No, I didn't overdo it, really I didn't dear watchdogs for my health.  It took me about 11 hours from start to finish because I took lots of breaks!  Truly I did listen to your loving admonishments not to overdo it.  I finished the bathroom fixtures right at 8pm after a 9am start.

So this morning after my husband left to spend the day teaching a seminar elswhere, I managed to move all the living room furniture off the ridiculously large area rug and got all the vaccuming done after doing the dusting in there yesterday.  I rolled up the rug and hauled it off to the side so I could vaccum underneath it as well.  I promised my husband I wouldn't be moving any furniture because the other night when I rolled over in bed I felt a combination of a pop and a crunch just under my ribcage on the left hand side and wow, did it ever hurt for a second.  I can't feel anything out of place and wonder if it is just pulled muscles reacting to my lifting a heavy water jug earlier in the day, but it isn't stopping me from doing work, so I went ahead and moved all the living room furniture, figuring if it was going to hurt me those muscles would let me know.  No problem and most of that furniture is either very light or very easy to push around, even though I am still sore.  So I HALF WAY obeyed my husband: I did move the furniture out, but he can assist me in changing the area carpet end for end, revacuuming it to stretch it in the opposite direction to where it has been stretching and then put the furniture back into place.  I am kind of obedient to orders to take care of myself....sorta....a little bit.....ya' know....

Now I will go and push the sofa back in front of the tv and watch a couple of home sale shows I recorded.  I had better get the Banjo Bowl football game set up to record as well as a reward for my husband when he arrives home from his very busy day.

Leftovers for dinner....yay!!!

A Social Day Before The Heavy Lifting Starts Tomorrow!

Tomorrow I have to start a couple of days of proper housework.  We have had the windows open in the late afternoons and all night ever since we arrived home from AB and apart from light dusting and vaccuming I haven't really kept up properly with the amount of dust that blows in here.....typical prairie conditions with fields so close to the edges of town and gale force winds so many days in a row.  Time to hunker down for a couple of days and"git 'er done"!! I am going to take advantage of the last two cooler days before the heat arrives again for another week!  Tomorrow I will dust everything in sight and clean the bathroom, then follow it up with a Saturday of vaccuming because my husband is teaching a seminar all day and I can have the place to myself to swing the living room furniture around and vaccum out the small rolls in the new carpet that are forming as it stretches.  I will leave all the furniture pushed off of it and then my husband can help me turn it end for end when he gets home.  Looking forward to doing a more thorough job on my assigned tasks.  

Today was a lot of fun.  I got a few things done this morning and then headed off to pick up my friend for our final Thursday lunch of the summer season.  I picked out just the right place with a menu that has all the things she and I can both eat and away we went across the city.  Yesterday we both looked at the menu online and picked out what we wanted to eat.  We drove into the parking lot, chattering away and not paying much attention to the completely empty parking lot.  I started pulling into a stall when we took a better look around us and both noticed that our car was the only one parked anywhere near the restaurant.  Wha....?  Then we realized that the place was totally dark inside, there were no cars in the employee parking stalls, the whole restaurant looked deserted and the signs were all gone from the sides of the building!  The restaurant where my husband and I shared many lunches with former parishioners and most recently had the annual cousins' reunion is permanently closed....it is empty, cleaned out lock stock and beer barrel.  Oh my goodness!  I was stunned to say the least.  Where did everybody go???  And when???  Why is their website still up and functioning???  Fortunately for us, I didn't have to come up with a new restaurant on the spur of the moment because we realized there was another restaurant almost right beside the one we thought we were going to.  The menu short, the food was overpriced and it was kind of noisy, but we survived, had a good visit and, since we had arrived rather early for our meal, got out of there before the rest of the lunch bunch arried from surrounding businesses and drowned out our conversation completely.  Not the most auspicious way to end our summer lunching fun, but it was a spontanous adventure at least, hahahaha.  I haven't had a shock like that since an eye appointment a year or two ago when I arrived at the ophthalmologist's office only to discover it abandoned....just like the restaurant today....only a bit of lint on the carpet left behind to indicate anyone had been there in recent memory! hahahaha  Well, I located the eye specialist then and we located another restaurant today, so....it was all good.

I arrived home after lunch to a message that another friend had just baked bread and had a loaf all bagged and ready for me to pick up.  YES!!! This friend makes the best bread EVER!  Picking it up resulted in a happy hour of visiting before I came home and spent some more happy hours chatting with my husband.  A quiet evening and now some blogging is ending my day.  I think I will head to bed a bit early this evening so I can be prepared for the work bee I have set up for myself over the next couple of days.  My husband will be gone long enough each day for me to get a lot of uninterrupted cleaning time...yay!

For My Tea Hobbyist Husband!

------------------------------------------------

 

 Cuppa

No matter if you're uppity

or you cause a brew, haha,

you will always be my cuppa tea,

my steaming mug of cha.

You should know, my darjeeling,

only tea leaves me this way.

You stir up my feelings.

You turn me fifty shades of earl grey.

Be my lapsang souchong

and I'll be your lapdog

(yes, I know that it sounds wrong)

but that's the oolong

and the short of it,

the infusing, confusing thought of it,

oh, please don't make a sport of it,

because without you, 

I am defunct,

like a biscuit waiting

to be dunked.

--Brian Bilson

-----------------------------------------------

Love you dearie....teehee......enjoy your latest batch of brand new teas!!

-----------------------------------------------

Come On Rain!!!!

It is much cooler and overcast this morning.  There have been a few drops of rain in the past fifteen minutes, but I hope we get a more thorough refreshing downpour today.  The "immediate" forecast is predicting that if we do it won't last more than ten minutes.  I love rainy days now that the basement sealant is holding so well! haha

My husband is tired today, BUT despite that he was outside loading up items for a thrift store run before 10am!  We have a convenient wide open space again now at the bottom of our basement stairs!  In the coming weeks it will fill up with more thrift store items, but for now it is nice to have more space down there.  I went along for the ride this morning after being able to at least carry out a couple of bags of clothing to contribute to the load.  YAY!  My husband is going to go through his recently expanded wardrobe as well and that will alleviate the crammed, wrinkle producing space in his post WW2 closet.  Since my clothes rack takes up all the available floor space in the bedroom, he has nowhere to have a clothes rack for himself, but as I look at what he is likely to keep for clothes items I realize he isn't going to need additional space anyway.  I planned to purchase one more pair of winter blue jeans, but after sorting through my winter clothes bins the other day I discovered a perfect, oversized, comfy pair for wearing here at home during the cold days of winter.  A savings fer shur!  My only purchases for this winter were four sweaters to replace four old sweaters that are not worth wearing any more. I do tend to hang onto sweaters for far too long.  Learning to let go.....

Maybe I should spend a bit of time reading this afternoon.  After our thrift store run I went over to the grocery store and walked up and down the aisles looking for purse sized packages of tissues, confirmed with the staff that they don't sell them any more and will have to try the pharmacy I suppose.  Why are they suddenly so difficult to find?  Have they gone the way of Nabisco's Stoned Wheat Thins, or have I simply not yet stumbled on where to find them?  So I feel I have had enough serious walking exercise today after going up and down stairs so many times in the previous two days and should rest this hip a bit.  

Oh COME ON rain....please come down to the ground and wash off my car! 

More Exercise The Last Two Days! YES!!

For the sake of my blood sugar I have been trying to come up with some form of regular exercise that doesn't involve walking long distances, but gets those big muscles burning carbs after a meal.  In the past two days I have logged nearly 40 trips and up and down one and two flights of stairs and it is making my thigh muscles feel pretty darned good.  Tomorrow I will try a bit more walking sans so many trips on the stairs and see how that goes.  There has to be some kind of balance between not stressing the SI joints and arthritis without being completely inert. Therefore I am determined to discover some non-damaging exercise options that will help keep my blood sugar in line.  I have started cutting back on the number of carbs per meal as often as I can in an attempt to lose a few pounds so that when I eventually have my hip surgery the recovery will be somewhat easier.  I know from having so much prior experience with bone repair surgeries how much carrying excess weight makes the recovery process more strenuous and painful than it has to be.  Anyway, I likely have many, many months to wait, so there should be time to lose that weight without having to go on some kind of near starvation diet that will only result in the weight going back on during surgical recovery.  It is exciting to have a few health goals in mind after a couple of years of not caring very much for one reason and another.

Tonight we are under a severe level, dangerous forest fire smoke warning.  This presents me with a bit of a conundrum.  After being able to smell the smoke for most of the evening, I finally shut all the windows about a half hour ago.  I have a fan running that should direct the air from inside to the outside without drawing in too much smoke, but I will see how that goes this time around. Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't.  Do I expose my long suffering asthmatic lungs and itchy, watery eyes to yet another night of smoke, or do I lie here all night sweaty and miserable and unable to sleep because it isn't cool enough inside the house with all the windows closed?  Aaaargh!!  Once again I join the thousands of Canadians praying for relief from the northern fires and their consequences.  Right now Canada is worse than anywhere in the world for the amount of toxic emissions emanating from one country and it is because of the forest fires.  Lord, we need help here!  We need northern rains and more firefighters and less lightning and more effective equipment to deliver water to the flames on the ground and in the trees.  Thank you for what you are planning to do to eventually help us, Amen.  Since my throat is already sore this evening I think I will opt for the sweaty, sleepless night over the asthmatic, swollen sinus, drippy eyed awakening after a night with at least a few consecutive hours of sleep with the windows open.  Decisions, decisions, decisions..........

Lofty Thoughts About Death.....

 DEATH

It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself.  He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects and humbles them at the instant; makes them cry, complain and repent, yea, even to hate their forepassed happiness.  He takes the account of the rich and proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but in the gravel that fills his mouth.  He holds a glass before the eyes of the the most beautiful and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness, and they acknowledge it. Oh eloquent, just and mighty Death! Whom none could advise thou hast persuaded, what none hath dared thou hast done, and whom all the world hath flattered thou only hast cast out of the world and despised.  Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty and ambition of man, and covered it all over with those two narrow words, Hic jacet.

--Sir Walter Raleigh, The Historie of the World, 1614

 

"Here lies". Raleigh was cited in John Dover Wilson, compilation "Life in Shakespeare's England-A Book of Elizabethan Poetry".  Published in Cambridge England in 1911; Cambridge University Press.)

All Done....And Done In!! Happily Though.....

35 items of clothing have been ironed now:  a combination of dresses, teeshirts, pairs of pants and dress shirts are all ironed, dried on the hangers and put away in closets and on clothes racks. Done and done in, that's me!  Thrilled to have the task completed, thrilled that my sore hip held up well for two sessions of 90 minutes each, thrilled that my back only started to ache for the last ten minutes, thrilled about my new(ish) house sandals that are SO comfy and supportive of all my bone issues. Thank you Lord!!!!  It has been a number of months since I spent 3 hours in one day ironing clothes!  Glad it is a rare occasion, although I do enjoy the work.

It is warm again today and will be tomorrow as well.  The temperature is hovering just above +30C, but there is once again high altitude smoke taking the edge off the worst of the heat.  Thankfully I can't smell the smoke today.  I wonder how bad the rise in various lung cancers is going to be in the next twenty years here in Canada after a number of years of summer forest fire smoke wafting through our cities and towns, settling in thickly sometimes for several days in a row.  At least if we do get the heavy snow predicted for western Canada this winter, perhaps it will be enough to snuff out some of the longer burning fires?   

For lunch I opened a premade Caesar salad package and mixed in a can of white shredded tuna.  It actually tasted okay and was at least somewhat healthy for us both.  Dinner....now that is another conundrum.  I wasn't thinking that far ahead once I realized I could do all of the ironing today, since places we need to go this week are all closed for the holiday Monday.  Well, we have some yummy ripe tomatoes in the crisper, a fresh squeeze bottle of Japanese mayonnaise,  plus the remains of a few strips of lower sodium bacon so perhaps that would be a nice, lighter dinner for tonight.  Perhaps I will remember to take some meat out of the freezer for tomorrow's meals? No promises when I am this tired. hahaha 

I SHOULD Have Been Ironing....BUUUUUUUTTTT.......

 .....instead my husband and I had a grand time this aftenroon with our next door neighbour helping her set up her first iPad with access passwords, downloads, apps and what have you.  Okay, okay, honesty correction: it was my husband who did 99% of the work figuring things out and helping her learn how to use her iPad properly while I was there mostly for moral support and some laughs.  😉Whatever....it was a ton more fun for me than tacking the grossly huge amount of ironing from 3 weeks' worth of laundry!! 

Before church this morning I spent some time researching restaurants here in town as there are so many we have never been to despite having lived here nearly 10 years!  After church we went to Tommy's Speakeasy, a former steak house turned bar and restaurant.  It wasn't very busy so the noise was almost nil and we certainly did enjoy that.  My husband ordered the steak sandwich and was allowed two sides with his meal, one of which was an assortment of vegetables, including carrots and broccolini.  With that he could also have a salad or fries.  Silly man opted for fries when he knows he shouldn't eat them, but he is a grown up, so his choice, right?  The veggies were delicious, cooked properly and his steak was a perfect medium rare. So, he was thrilled to death.  I ordered the barbacoa tacos and they were also delicious.  3 handrolled corn tacos, a bit crumbly as I dipped them in the perfectly warm but not screaming hot jalapeno sauce.  They were stuffed with beef and feta cheese and finely chopped lettuce and tomato.  Without the sauce they would have been a bit dry, but with the sauce they were tasty good!  My it was fun trying out a place that is new to us and having good success!  The local Moxie's chain restaurant has just reopened, so for the sake of nostalgia perhaps we will try eating there next Sunday after church.  We still remember driving into Calgary many, many years ago and going to its very first Moxie's, thinking we had really struck gold compared to what was available for restaurants in the town where we lived at the time. hahaha  Well, Moxie's was a big step up for us "geographically" speaking.  We shall see if the newly renovated and revamped Moxie's here in town requires their female wait staff to wear as few clothes as possible, like the last iteration of the place. If so, it will be our only visit....in fact, I am guessing that if we walk in the door and see partially clad wait staff again we will just turn around and walk out.....how very, very disrespectful to those young women to expect them to dress so skimpily! So silly for those women to fall for that nonsense, although it is a job and sometimes other jobs are difficult to aquire so.....for some of them it's a Catch-22.

My coming week is all set up for ironing and getting some serious house cleaning accomplished.  Everything is behind because of my hip and a bout of some kind of tummy bug I fought with for several days recently, so it is time to catch up now that I am well again and my hip  has responded positively to the enforced time of resting. I rarely mind cleaning house...to see everything all sparkly again is such a mental boost!