All We Can Do Is Laugh, Right?

Soooooo, yesterday the maintenance crew arrived to replace the kitchen wall and ceiling drywall where the plumbers had to cut into it earlier this week. We arrived home from our afternoon away to find a fairly decent patching job all done. Naively we assumed that today, or at least soon, they would return to sand and repaint the patch. Stupid us…..after living here for ten years why did we not realize that is not going to happen???? This morning we received email notification that the maintenance request for patching has been officially completed. hahaha 😂 Well, that much is true at least. That crew apparently is not responsible for painting. They did not apparently submit a request to the painting crew the way the plumbers submitted a request for the drywall patching crew. 

So, the question is whether or not WE submit a request, but I am guessing we will not bother. Since the suite was last painted ten years ago and the interior paint colours in use now are not the same, painting that patch will require repainting the entire kitchen. I doubt management is going to agree to that because we have no lease so if we were to give notice in the next few months the entire suite would have to be repainted anyway, AND since I hope to be moving in another year’s time after my hip surgeries, Lord willing, I frankly couldn’t care less about one more ugly spot in this crumbling suite. A bit of patching paint does not improve the ruined kitchen linoleum, the rotting carpets, the unrepaired gouges on the baseboards that had been painted over before we moved in, the drain issues, the dying appliances, the basement cracks, etc., etc.  There will be great rejoicing I am certain by the management when we finally do leave and they can give the whole suite a cheap facelift and start charging premium rent to an unsuspecting tenant. The ability to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” is getting to be beyond us, but we have tried hard for a long time with at least some success. Yay!! Our future is so uncertain right now, so better to hang in a bit longer in this complex until the way forward becomes more clear. In the meantime we can giggle at this crazy accommodation’s foibles rather than make a panicked move that puts us in another less than tolerable rental situation. 

Today's Absolutes: Happiness, Fulfillment, Great Food, Wonderful Pre-Storm Weather!!

Today has been a most happy day, busier than planned for, but wonderful in the way the extra committments worked out.  The beautiful weather of -7C all day meant that the streets were puddly and soggy and our car is now the same mud brown colour as all the other vehicles in town...it is mud from the top of the roof to the base of the tires and every window has  had to be wiped by hand since we arrived home after our busy day......and that is just quite all right because the change in the weather begins tomorrow morning!  In the morning the snow and strong winds will begin and then we are in for it for at least seven to ten days and nights of temperatures in the -28C to -33C range if the forecast is at all correct.  Unfortunately if the forecast here is incorrect during the winter months it is because we actually get more cold and snow than predicted rather than less.  Today we ran a few extra errands so we don't have to go anywhere this weekend that isn't just for fun:  FUN STUFF IS happening....lunch on Saturday with friends over at DarBar, Lord willing and the streets are passable, and then church on Sunday.  YAY!

I began my morning at 6:30am so that I could have my breakfast in time to enjoy a huge caramel flavoured steamed milk with my friend at 9:30am at our favourite coffee bar.  We have the best time chatting once a week.  Then after I dropped her back at home I headed to the bank to get some things done before month end, onward to my house where our minister was just wrapping up a meeting with my husband.  I barely had time for a quick slice of bread before heading off to our Bible Study group of retired peers from church. My husband had no time to eat anything at all for lunch because as he was about to grab a bagel the building maintenance man arrived to put new drywall and patching on the big holes in our wall and ceiling from where the plumbers had to cut into the wall to replace the bathtub drainage valve.  We had to move all the items off the top of the cupboards and counter again to make room for him to work and THIS TIME we remembered to tape the top of the dish cupboards to keep the drywall dust from infiltrating a second time in one week. hahaha  We will leave everything in place until after the fellow comes to sand down that new drywall mud and repaint.  Hopefully he will be back tomorrow or early next week....if he actually comes back to do that. Finding matching paint is going to be difficult because our place was last painted just before we moved in here just short of 10 years ago.  Glad to have those big holes sealed up properly.  Whew!!

Off we headed to Bible Study and it went very well.  It was a smaller group today as we are in "Travelling to South and Central America By Plane Or Cruise Ship Season".  Aaah the life of retirees with big pensions, hahaha.  I am super happy for them. I don't have the Travel Bug and so I can wish them a wonderful journey with no travel envy.

While I was gone for coffee this morning one of my hospitalized friends had managed to charge  her cell phone and had called our house 3 times. Before I could call her back she called once again and was desperate to see me as she was having an emotional day. So, after Bible Study we hied across the city to the hospital so I could be dropped off for a visit while my husband stopped at the nearest McDonalds to quell his hunger pangs.  For breakfast at 9am he had eaten a small bowl of yogurt with maple syrup and by the time we got to the hospital it was nearly 4pm. He was nearly passing out from hunger.  When I was ready to leave the hospital....after a painfully discouraging visit with my friend who is developing dementia, sadly, sigh.....my husband picked me up and told me that since I had not eaten a proper lunch either, that he was going to take me somewhere healthier than McDonalds for some "Lupper" of my own! I could tell my blood sugar was getting far too low, so I didn't argue with him.  I had a marvellous beef barbacoa quesadilla with a delicious Mexican soup and my already somewhat full husband ordered dessert....Tres Leches cake that was delicious enough on its own according to him, but had the added treat of being covered in fresh strawberries and blueberries and a dash of whipped cream.  We were both so hungry that we stuffed ourselves with food and now we are feeling kind of "lumpy", BUT our tummies feel so happy.  Yum! Yum!  I am justifying the unexpected restaurant meals by telling myself it is going to be so cold and snowy for the next week or more that we won't be going out anywhere anyway except for those couple of fun events this weekend and required emergency groceries.

It has been a grand day and while I am completely exhausted by it, it is a happy exhaustion....and now to finally get to my physio exercises I had no time to do yet today.....should have done them twice, but better once than "nunce".

"My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying......"

While the Buffy Sainte Marie song titled above has everything to do with the plight of the American indigenous people and nothing whatsoever to do with what is happening to the present Canadian economic landscape, that title speaks to how I am feeling about some of the things happening in our wee city, (And don't even get me started on what is falling apart in our country!), this past few days.  

Locally we are losing business after business after business as restaurants, retail stores and specialty boutiques continue their unrelenting march forward into bankruptcy or the retirement of long time business owners who can't find anyone to take over their businesses or businesses who cannot find qualified staff or can't afford to pay their staff any more at all, the rise in shipping costs, supply chain issues....and on and on it goes. A number of clothing retail stores have disappeared in recent weeks, more restaurants have been shuttered and yesterday's huge disappointment in our house was the sudden announcement of the across Canada closure of the Peavey Mart chain.  Sigh....that is where my husband could always find work and casual clothes that actually fit him properly, where I have been purchasing all my blue jeans and tees ever since we arrived here ten years ago.  They had all manner of agricultural supplies that were not available in quantity at any of the other local hardware stores, if at all anywhere else and this is a huge hit to all the farmers in the surrounding area who have depended on Peavey Mart heavily to find everything from bulk quantities of chicken wire to garden implements to nails and hammers to fencing materials to.....it is a big loss to the rural population across Canada. 

Other signs of our economic downturn are more subtle but just as annoying to me personally.  A great hue and cry was made when advertising appeared on the HGTV station a few months back announcing that HGTV was changing to Home Network.  The home renovations celebrities doing the tv ads were mostly people I have watched for a number of years on HGTV and find that their personalities add to my enjoyment of their particular programmes and I had no idea their shows would no longer be available to me.  At no time during the advertising campaign was there any mention that the new Home Channel was not just a rebranding of HGTV.  Imagine my disappointment when the change happened back in December and I found out that in the USA HGTV is alive and well and carrying on as usual with its programming, MY programming! hahaha  Here in Canada, unless we are subscribing to streaming channels that still carry HGTV, (and MTV which has been cancelled out from our tv stations completely), we are now stuck with this Home Channel "thing".  I can imagine that it was becoming more expensive to carry the American programming and who knows what else has been going on to take us down this disapointing viewing pathway, but one of the reasons given for such a huge change was that Home wants to have a higher content of Canadian programming.  Okay....I have suffered through mandatory, forced on us, Canadian content programming before in years past and some of our programming has definitely improved, BUT I am not seeing much more quality Canadian programming on Home than I did before on HGTV.  Instead we viewers are being "treated" to home sales and renovation reruns from Australia, (Australia is part of Canada now??), Canadian reno reruns from the same era with "stars" who do little to show us the actual renovations and instead spend MY time talking about their personal lives, (seriously ladies, I don't care), and these reruns are of shows originally aired between 2017 and 2022!!  Some are reruns filmed even earlier than that!  Talk about irrelevant at this point in time....who cares what happened in the Australian housing market back in 2017....at least who among Canadian viewers?  Okay, some people will enjoy it, but oh my....what a miserable change in home show programming for myself and a number of others I have talked to.  Well, since I am not about to pay even more money for a streaming service I will only use for the American HGTV programming, I am going to be contacting my tv service provider next week to cancel yet another package of stations and save myself another ten dollars a month. Why not?  The current changes I made to my packages was made specifically to continue to keep what I thought was a simple rebranding of the original HGTV station.  Part of that package also includes the now Flavour Network....another station that was rebranded and removed many of my favourite cooking shows in the process.  

I feel like all the small things that help me to cope with living on the prairies, particularly during the miserably long winters, are disappearing faster than I can deal with.  The small things that made life worth living here during the weeks and months when going out is difficult for me are not there any more. Sigh.....SO my mission, should I choose to accept it, (and I do so choose), is to find other ways to entertain myself during the Ice and Snow Months of the year. No doubt I will find something, but it is sad to say farewell to these teeny pleasures I have enjoyed since we moved here. 

Apart from these small upsets life is good. A week of warmer weather before we get slammed again next week is much appreciated and has made Errand Running Days like today a lot more fun than drudgery. YAY!!  A hospital visit this morning went well and we knew the other visitors there with the patient, so that was extra nice to all be together for awhile.  Finding some new and fun Japanese stationery at Paper Umbrella was a treat for me too.  Lunch at Agave was unexpected and I am rather happy my husband forgot to eat breakfast before going to a meeting this morning, thereby "forcing" us to eat out mid errand running. hahahaha  Grocery shopping was actually a ton of fun today and my husband found some wonderful "extras" I wouldn't even have seen, let alone purchased. Last night went well with our company for dinner. The plumbers pulled out at 3:30pm and by 4pm I had all the drywall and other dusty dirties cleaned up so I could start making dinner.  What a wonderful evening we had visiting and feasting.  

As  you can see, there is more in my life than complaining about small losses, but it certainly does feel therapeutic to have a place to share my thoughts and feelings to such an empathetic and sympathetic group of readers. Love ya'!!! THANK YOU!!!

Well OF COURSE The Plumbers Are Here Today Instead Of Yesterday....Sigh....

 There is a a reason I am using this colour font with the PLUMBERS being here today....think about it.....aaargh!

Since a larger emergency took their attentions elsewhere yesterday, they are here today....and I do mean HERE, not just next door at the neighbours' where the access to the plumbing stack connecting our two bathtubs is supposed to be easiest for them to access.  Nope, it turns out that when they cut into her wall and ceiling above the top cupboards in her kitchen, there was an unexpected wooden slat blockage to the connecting drain they are trying to replace where it connects to our bathtub.  SO, they are now in OUR kitchen cutting out part of the wall and ceiling above OUR cupboards because the access is free and clear there. hahahaha We are having company for dinner tonight, I need to make the dessert and our entire kitchen is now covered in the insidious dry wall dust!!!  Yes, it is creeping everywhere as these fellows drill and saw and pull and fight their way up physically into the space between our kitchen and the plumbing connector that has to be replaced on the second floor.  Methinks the rest of the pipes will NOT receive the cleaning out that was originally requested by the maintenance plumber on staff as this first "simple fix" is turning into an hours long event.  hahaha  

I am not angry. I am not even upset. I am simply resigned to the inevitability of the timing of these things.  It is going to take us at least an hour after the plumbers are gone to ferret out all, or at least most of the drywall dust that trickles into every nook and cranny in any room where it is set free.  Of course we are supposed to be having company for dinner tonight, so of course now with the compressed cooking and baking time frame a joyous time of fellowship is turning into a far more stressful time of preparation than expected.  

Aaaaah, such is life in an aging rental unit that still has original galvanized pipes with newer plastic piping attachments tied into them.  The problems of trying to save money for their investors is a constant issue with these large rental property companies, so the replacing of all the old pipesa at once is to be avoided until absolutely necessary and the tenants pay the heaviest and most inconvenient price.  Not the first time we have been in this sort of situation over the years, so we are not as horrified by the issues here as our next door neighbours are who are about our age, former home owners, but new to renting in public housing units.  I feel for them. I remember our first time in their situation and the building maintenance issues that stunned and horrified me at the time.  hahaha How things have changed for me in that regard.  Thankfully.....hahaha.

Perspective From A Different Culture

 We have been getting to know a young man from Cameroon who has been coming to church over the past few weeks. On Sunday we got talking about his life here in Canada. He arrived here eight weeks ago and has been most industrious in his search for employment, polling nearly every member of the congregation for their own employment contacts and ideas for where he could make applications. Arriving in the midst of our bitterly cold and icy winter weather was a shock to his system, as you can imagine. I asked him if he had a warm place to live and he responded that while he does have an apartment he is surprised there are no space heaters, “only” the what we would call typical central heating, and that even though he cranks the thermostat to its highest temperature he is still so cold that he has to close the windows at night. I thought I must have misunderstood him, so I asked him more questions about his windows and, sure enough, he has them all open during the day…always….no matter what the temperature is outside!! No wonder he is wearing his parka and scarf inside his suite!!!! When I explained to him that Canadians typically close their windows as soon as the temperatures drop in the winter and only rarely have reason to open them again until spring his mouth fell open and I could tell he didn’t believe a word of what I was saying. Then he asked me about our average summer temperatures, since coming from a country that sees temperatures between +35C and +50C during the hot season he has been looking forward to our summers, I am afraid I dashed his hopes when I told him that our summers average +28C to +35C or lower on average and that in the nearly twelve years I have lived in Saskatchewan only three times have we had temperatures in the +40C range and then only for one or two days at a time, he looked at me as if I had just sprouted two heads! Hahahaha…

I don’t know what these dear immigrants have been told about life here before they arrive, but for the many new foreign residents in our area it has mostly been an unpleasant shock. So many seem to have been led to believe it is some kind of promised land where they will find jobs and make money to send home to their struggling families. No one seems to be alerting them to the mess our economy is in, that job openings are so few and far between right now that even young people born, raised and educated here are having trouble finding work of any kind. Even the food industry here is in such a state of decline that hiring is way down as rising prices are forcing staff cutbacks and closures.

The cost of food and housing is far beyond anything our newcomers have been prepared for. Some of our African friends from church are living in downtown shelters, struggling to understand the situation they find themselves in. Our congregation has a few stop gap measures in place but those are temporary bandaids, not long term solutions.

Have our new friends misunderstood the information they were given before they left their homelands? Has our government, or theirs, fed them presently unattainable hopes and dreams of a better life here? Have they simply made assumptions without doing their own research? I don’t know. I only know that we have a crisis here right now for desperate people arriving with hopes and dreams they think they can fulfill here and it isn’t taking long for those hopes and dreams to be dashed. It breaks my heart and makes me feel helpless. I am too far removed now from the employment market, have no more personal contacts to assist these folk in finding affordable housing. Right now all I can do is pray, keep my ears open for possibilities and not give out false hope. What a mess and what a disaster for people so desperate many of them are borrowing air fare from loan sharks in their home countries in an attempt to help their starving families, some in refugee camps, living in deplorable conditions, their only apparent hope of surviving in the hands of the one young person in the family who made it out to come to the land of promise here in Canada. What an apparently hopeless situation for so many, as they discover even Canadian citizens are also living in inadequate housing, struggling to find employment and food to feed their families. Oh dear Lord, help….

"I Gotta Walk!!!

I don't remember if I have used that "title" for a post previously, but it certainly applies to me today!  It is a quote from a teeny tiny person who was one of a set of triplets born to good friends years ago and the wee one had a serious issue with the formation of the legs, leading to great difficulty in walking for the first few years of life.  How many times did we hear that child, constantly working on walking say, "I GOTTA WALK!!?  And you know what, it eventually happened. The teensy person now has a wife and children and is all grown up. 

This afternoon I was sitting at my desk watching the online funeral of a dear friend and I realized that warmth and sunlight were streaming in through the window beside me.  It caused me to long for a chance to go walking before the terribly cold temperatures reassert themselves next week.  As soon as the funeral ended I put on my coat and boots, grabbed my cane and went outside to take advantage of all the snow being melted off the front sidewalk.  After not being able to do more than a block or two round trip last fall and not getting any sort of proper walk since the winter snow arrived, I was concerned I wouldn't get very far.  Praise the Lord I walked a four block round trip with only minimal pain.  As I walked along the first couple of blocks I realized I wasn't extending my stride with my "bad hip" the way I would if I was walking normally, so I forced myself to consciously extend that limb for the last two blocks.  It wasn't long before I realized the longer stride made that hip feel like it was pulling apart along the old fracture line.  It wasn't actually pulling apart of course, but it is good get some kind of idea how far I may be able to walk using a reduced length of stride and how short a distance I may be stuck walking if I continue to try to walk normally.  Obviously my couple of weeks of physiotherapy exercises, simple as they are, have started strengthening the muscles around the degenerating hip bones.  I do realize though that if I was not taking generous amounts of anti-inflammatories, I would barely be able to walk at all. Sigh.....HOWEVER, I am encouraged to continue having a short walk each day of this warmer, "melt-ier" week.  

After I returned home, watching the relief on my husband's face as I came up the front walk and saw him watching for me in hopes I hadn't fallen down somewhere out of his sight, we watched the finale of the January Sumo Tournament that occurred last night in Tokyo.  My most favourite Ozeki of all, Hoshoryu, won the Emporer's Cup.  What a delightful outcome to a most exciting honbasho.

Now I must go and make our dinner before my husband awakens from his nap.  Tomorrow evening a friend is coming over for dinner and that meal I do have planned in advance, but tonight's dinner hour kind of snuck up on me. Since my husband is asleep, perhaps he will not notice that I am late with our meal????  teehee

Maybe The Water Issue Today Will Solve Even More Issues!

The plumber has come and gone. Turns out the problem is one of the old galvanized pipes where our tub is attached to the main stack. The threads have broken off where the two pipes are screwed together and the corrosion inside the ancient pipes has narrowed a three inch draining diameter to less than an inch. When the tub drains the water is backing up into the vent and cascading into the basement next door. So, on Monday other plumbers with the proper equipment and new pipes and attachments are coming to do repairs. They are also going to flush out all the drains in both suites and we are hoping that will take care of the smell that occasionally fills our suite. We have lived here for ten years and they have never been properly flushed out. Who knows what other issues may surface!!???!! If we have to remain here for a few more months it will be wonderful to have some more plumbing issues resolved.

When Your Bathtub Drains Into Your Neighbour’s Basement……

 ……and she calls to let you know, the sick feeling in the pit of your stomach intensifies greatly.  That call came here a few minutes ago and we are all waiting for the emergency plumbing crew to arrive. Sigh…..with yet another serious maintenance issue arising today, I fear we will lose our wonderful next door neighbours in a few months when their lease is up. Sigh again….

My husband had a bath a short while ago and when he drained the water out it ended up gushing into the basement of the suite next door. Our shared plumbing stack is on their side of the wall and we suspect the ongoing freeze, thaw, refreeze cycle this winter has put ice down into the stack where it has cracked the pipe. Oh my……I don’t want to imagine the amount of water the neighbours are dealing with. Right before my husband had his bath I had a shower. Oh dear….

Guess I will go and make dinner, keep an eye out for the plumbers in case they have to access the connecting pipe from our bathroom, and pray that for our neighbours’ sakes , and ours, the pipe can be repaired right away.

Yup, As A Retired Person, I Get It...See Below!

 

Truth From The Peanuts Gang!!!

Gittin' 'Er Done Before The Snow And Wind Arrives! YAY!

We have a bit of a mini-blizzard happening at the moment.  There are fat, fluffy snowflakes being blown hither and thither and yon outside and our carefully carved path through the snow across the lawn to our car has been obliterated after less than two hours of snowfall due to the strong wind. Happily for us, all our activities and errands away from home ended just as the snow began.

I picked up my friend this morning for our weekly coffee time and even though it was Friday it was pretty quiet in the coffee bar.  We had four high school aged students sitting very close to us, but they were quite good at keeping their young, still higher pitched voices at low level.  I find it so interesting and amusing how people in this area can be crammed in elbow to elbow in restaurants and movie theaters that have no other patrons filling any of the other tables or seats.  It was a few years of living in this province before I ceased to be annoyed by it.  Now I just find it kind of odd, but not upsetting. Personal growth, right? haha

I was barely in the door when I got home when my husband reminded me that we have a fistful of restaurant coupons building up on the kitchen counter.  I have been ignoring them. He wanted to keep them, despite most of them being for fast food restaurants that we don't go to.  However, I did discover a reuseable Montana's coupon that doesn't expire until the end of February. I think it has been sitting in the counter pile since sometime in November. Anyway, he decided we should immediately go out for lunch and make use of the thing.  I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by our meal....again....for the third time we have visited that particular franchise in the past year.  The meals were reasonably priced for the amount of food on each plate and things were properly cooked. My husband ordered a five dollar side of fried mushrooms to go with his steak and he was thrilled to get a small grill pan filled with whole mushrooms for that price.  My caesar salad was very fresh and my little pan of cheese/broccoli dip with some tortilla chips was quite tasty.  For lunch it was a nice little place to go and the music inside was not deafening!  Yes, it is still somewhat glorified "fast food", but it was still very tasty and didn't break the bank.  

After lunch I deposited the final installment of a small inheritance from my aunt.  I am learning that even the smallest of estates take time to process.  It has taken well over two years for the executor to be able to wrap things up.  The estate was even smaller than my mom's, but apparently she had a teeny tiny investment locked in  until earlier this month. I was thrilled to receive my portion of it today.  I was able to go to a jewllery store as we ran our errands and purchased myself a decent Bulova watch.  I have been wearing Mom's old watch for the past nearly 3 years and it had seen better days before I got it, so time to let it go. I still have her and Dad's wedding bands that I wear every day along with my own.  Those are still a nice visual reminder of my parents.  I love my new watch.  It is nice to have a decent dress watch again so I don't have to wear my old biker watch on the fat, black leather strap everywhere I go!!  So, once again I have a dressier watch and one for jeans and weekends.  A treat!

We stopped by the nearest library today to scope out their little cart of used books for sale. I got three novels for two dollars, nice for me and another small donation for the library.  I have taken to doing this each time I drive past one of our local branches. There are always at least a small number of books that I purchase.

Tomorrow I want to get to the hospital where my friend has been "incarcerated" for the past three weeks.  Her mind has not been clear since before she entered hospital and every time I go to see her she thinks it is the first visit since she went in.  She doesn't realize just how long she has been there. Apparently she will be moved from there to a rehab facility for more recovery care. I hope it is a decent place as she will be there for awhile.  Perhaps she is able to think more clearly now. It has been a whole week since I was able to get a ride over to see her.

My physiotherapy for my hip is going much better since I decided to obey the therapist and not do ANY of the exercises that mean putting all my weight on my degenerating hip.  Stupid me, always thinking I can do more than I actually can.  That has been true though just enough times for me to keep trying every time I get new exercises to push myself too far and too quickly. I have been chastised now and will be more obedient.  Three more weeks until I see the surgeon....I am praying so hard for relatively quick action on getting a surgery date. My stomach is starting to be rather unhappy with the strong anti-inflammatory meds, so my GERD condition is starting up again.  The other issue has become sort of like "follow the bouncing blood sugar levels"....eek!  How very grateful I am that at least I will have successfully completed the first three steps in the process in less than a year. That is a near miracle....only 7 months in total between the referral going in and seeing the surgeon for our intial consult. Amazing!

As  I have been keying this post in the big fat flakes of snow have stopped,  as well as the rain and snow mix that came before that and turned my husband into an abominable snowman-like character after walking across the mall parking lot after lunch, so only the wind remains.  We shall see how much more snow falls in the next 24 hours.  Ohhh....teeny tiny snowflakes are now dancing in the breeze!!

Soooo How Did YOU Spend YOUR Sunday?

 We spent ours battling with the freezing bl*%#y cold weather!!  When we woke up this morning the outside air temperature was -35C and the accompanying windchill was -48C!!  Brrrr, brrrrr and double brrrrr!!!  Fortunately in the morning the wind was barely blowing, so that certainly did help my husband get outside and get the car started.  Although it ran for nearly 30 minutes before we departed for church, we still had to scrape the ice off the windshield. Not only hadn't it melted off yet, it was still a struggle getting it off because it was just so darned hard!!  It took us ten minutes to crawl along in our still chilly vehicle to the church parking lot, at which time the temperature gauge on the engine was still barely registering on the dashboard.    Fortunately my husband was able to park it in a sheltered spot under a huge tree, so it started easily enough two hours later when we had to go home again.  

We thought we were done going out for the day, but we ended up at 5pm going to a family dinner.....for someone else's family....interesting and not sure how we ended up being invited, but it was good food and good fun with a couple of lively little kids thrown into the mix.  It has been a long time since I was asked to kiss a wee one's teddy bear as he was heading off to bed. hahaha

After we came home we watched our daily episode of the present Japanese Sumo tournament from Tokyo, followed by a lively 90 minute production of a  Metis jigging competition filmed this past summer at Batoche Saskatchewan. Our taste in entertainment is nothing if not eclectic!  

It truly has been a wonderful weekend..... in between making some hospital visits to old friends who are likely not going to be going home again due to illness or dementia and what have you, news of frightening health emergencies with other friends, as well as the death of one of our dear friends from church who I will always remember as being one of the most academically educated men I have ever met who did not hold it against me at all for my not having a string of doctorates and post secondary university degrees on my  CV.  He talked to me as if I was right up there with the rest of acadaemia.  It was wonderful and I learned many things as a result of his interest in talking to me. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

Friday evening we went to the home of friends for a movie night.  What a great time after a particularly depressing hospital visit in the afternoon.  The six of us laughed uproariously over everything and nothing, filled our faces with snacks and enjoyed watching Brenda Blethyn in the movie "Saving Grace", a real hoot of a movie that we could all relate to for one reason or another.  It was a great way to relax after a tense day.

We had a lovely meal at Agave this weekend.  Oh my goodness, I have yet to have a poorly done meal there. Their beef barbacoa is the best.  I have found all sorts of things I can eat there, as long as I remember to get a take out box at the same time as the meal arrives at my table, so that I can pack it up right away and not be tempted to overeat as I sit there in the restaurant.  It was unexpected to end up there on a chilly day, but my husband was having the precursor to his majestically frightening empty tummy attacks and he needed to eat immediately. Agave was the nearest restaurant and we didn't have to wait long for service or for the food to arrive.  His tummy calmed down and we had a needed time of downloading in between upsetting hospital visits.  

My husband has observed that I managed to overdo it in my first three days of physio exercises, trying to prove to myself that my hip is not as bad as it actually is, so he is making me take an extra day off before I start the next cycle....starting on Tuesday now. I want to do the usual 5 days on and 2 days off each week, but this coming week will be shortened to only 4 days while my muscles recover from me trying to show off and do some of the exercises the physiotherapist normally includes prior to seeing the surgeon, but that she specifically said may not be good for me. As usual I had to try to prove her wrong and I learned my lesson the hard way.  Sigh....now I am rather embarrassed to have to admit I disobeyed her and injured myself. Thirty lashes with a wet noodle and a restart on Tuesday.  Sigh.....

On the good news side of all things medical, the ligament on one side of my chest that I pulled so badly and may even have torn a few months ago is actually nearly healed after about 5 months of pain.  The doctor said it would take 4-6 months to heal and wow, she was SO right.  I was beginning to become discouraged over the amount of time it was taking, but it seems I will be fine if I remain vigilant and not try to pick up or carry anything heavy enough to irritate the ligament or reinjure it. I had best not turn my upper body too quickly to one side.  That is how I bruised it and partially displaced it in the first place.

Another day or two of this vicious cold front and then things are supposed to warm up considerably for about three days and then there will be another cold front, although hopefully not as cold as this current one, arriving next weekend.  I have a commitment nearly every morning this week, so our car will get a workout in the cold, that is for sure.  My walking partner is coming for a visit midweek and I am very excited about that as I have not seen her since well before Christmas.  I am having a hair cut this week. YAY!  My husband and I are having coffee with a wonderful couple from church one morning as he and the fellow discuss plans for sharing some teaching sessions in a couple of months at the church.  More medical appointments of course...it is all good....and somehow in the afternoons, of which I officially have three free this week, the house is in desperate need of a good cleaning once again...where does the time go????

Happy Memories Of Japan

 Friends of ours are currently visiting Japan.  They sent photos that evoked memories for me.  Here are a few of them from the Kyoto and Osaka areas:

 

Forest of "Big Bamboo"!

 The best food in the world, bar none!

Fascinating buildings!

Why can't OUR buildings be this creative and colourful, right?

My husband would enjoy one more trip to Japan, particularly a return to Tokyo, but I doubt it will ever happen.  Personally, I would like to preserve my memories from the last trip there, nearly a year of learning about and enjoying the culture!  It is the farthest I have ever been away from Canada and it was such a perfect time in my life to be out of the country...I don't want the changes that have happened since we got home to be in my face, spoiling the memories. 

I am sitting at my desk listening to the wind howling, knowing there is supposed to be a fair amount of blowing snow overnight....will the snow arrive or not?  Don't really care if it does.  I need to visit a friend in the hospital tomorrow before the deep freeze hits us tomorrow evening and lasts for about five days.  Then it is to warm up again to almost above zero temperatures. What a crazy winter.  I am not sure we are going to enjoy our trek to church on Sunday with the forecast temperature of -31C overnight and who knows what for a windchill factor. Hmmmm...we shall see how it goes. I suppose I will be attending as my husband has to be there for a class.  Each week is bringing us closer to spring and I am grateful for that.

My physiotherapy exercises are going not too badly, but o wow, am I ever sore after doing only 5 of them for 10 or less reps each (at least for now) only once a day while I am building up to 10 reps each session, three sessions a day.  At the rate I appear to be going, it is going to take me the entire month until I see the surgeon to get myself to complete the assigned exercise programme. Yikes...my muscles around the disintegrating hip are absolutely hooped!!  Owwweeee!!  However, I am keeping my eyes focused on the prize ahead...replacement surgeries!  YES!!!

Have a very happy weekend everyone.  I am going to enjoy mine with some household chores interspersed by watching the January SUMO tournament!  Yippee!!!  Grando Sumo!

 

 

Taking Advantage Of The Alberta Clipper Type Of Warm Up

What a marvellous day of warmth and sunshine with only a bit of a breeze to contend with.  Just lovely, marvellous, amazing and it is going to last for another day or two before the next round of typical January cold weather.  The temperatures are roller coastering, so each half of the week is completely different than the other half. Interesting winter, that is for sure.  It is the first winter that I have been tempted to envy some Alberta friends who last year began what will be an annual house sitting venture in Arizona through the worst two or three months of Canadian winter.  I look at the pictures of the cacti and the warm red sand that they sent me and wow.....I know the sand blows indoors and makes a mess, but heck, I have the same type of thing here, it is just that it is black soil, not red soil.  Tomato, tomaaaaaaaato.....ya' know?  

My husband was at a meeting for most of the morning, but when he arrived home he started going through is clothes and his excessive amount of good winter coats, of which he wears exactly 2 out of 5!  He was greatly inspired by the Sunday sermon where he heard God's words that "if you have two coats, give one away".  It isn't like that idea is new to him, but it particularly struck him once again. Away we went to a local addictions centre that has a clothing bank where he deposited three beautifully warm winter coats, a wind breaker, some mitts and scarves and several shirts....all next to new but that he never wears for one reason and another.  I am so proud of him. He even donated the good quality duffel bag he was carrying them in.  My husband gave away a perfectly good, nearly new duffel bag???  It IS a miracle!!!  A friend of ours works at the centre and providentially he was sitting in his car having lunch when we pulled up to the donation centre, so we had a good visit with him.  We ran a few more errands, got to see the last of what remains in our soon to be closing Hudson's Bay store, where we were able to pick up a few things we have needed for awhile in the dregs of the housewares department.  We talked to several of the staff and they are finally understanding that the owners of the Bay are not going to be helping them to find other employment when the store opens, so a bit of panic has begun to set in. Praying for them....at least they had lots of notice that the store was closing, so hopefully they will be able to find other retail work without too much trouble.  Got quite a lot of our recycling items deposited in one of the Big Blue Bins not too far from our place, so that cleans out another small corner of the basement, yay!!!  Now we can start collecting again.  Our trips across the parking lot to our court's garbage bin are becoming fewer and fewer as the months go along.  A great day of errand running, that's for sure.

With this lovely weather it looks like my usual weekly coffee time with my friend is a GO for tomorrow.  Our car is so spattered with mud from the amount of snow and ice melt today that it is kind of embarrassing to have to pick up someone else to ride in it, but there is no point in washing it just yet.  Driving back from our nearest car wash means driving on some of the wettest, muddiest streets in the area, so the car would be just as filthy by the time we got home home as it would have been prior to the washing.  Well, at least everyone else's vehicles are just as dirty as ours.  That is some consolation I suppose.  Not sure if we will be able to get it washed prior to the upcoming drop from +1C to -30C which will happen in another couple of days....freezing the doors shut is not a great plan.  We have done it too many times in the past and would rather keep the muddy spatters than encase our car in ice on what is going to be a busy weekend for us.

A Good Day!

My assessment appointment went well this morning. The physiotherapist was most informative and gave me a good checkup. I came away with a set of simple exercises, but they are still difficult to do because I have lost more range of motion than I realized. Okay, honestly, I was shocked at how poorly I performed the basic resistance moves. Yikes! I was sent down the hall for an updated X-ray before I left. Results show more degeneration in the lower lumbar region of my spine and arthritis has appeared in my other hip since the July X-ray. Shoot….

I learned why I was chosen to take this cancellation appointment. It is because this will be my third surgery on this hip after two previous fractures. Apparently worst case scenario is that after I meet with the surgeon next month it could be a full year before I have the surgery….sigh…..HOWEVER, I should not have been called this early for today’s appointment, so I am not discouraged yet. 

What a helpful conversation I had with the physiotherapist. I learned that one of the holdups on surgeries currently is a lack of anaesthesiologists. It is a Canada wide shortage and our city’s problem is that none of these medical specialists want to live and work here. Our main competition is Vancouver, and other centres with better climates, as well as the teaching hospital in Saskatoon. Sigh…..HOWEVER, I still was not discouraged even after hearing that. 

I will get my surgery at the right time. Getting this first appointment tells me that.

Thank you again for your prayers. I am grateful God is answering them in the affirmative and I hope you are encouraged too.

Twitterpated?

It is 5:15am and although I don’t have to get up until 7am I am wide awake. Not an unusual situation for me when I have an alarm set for waking up due to a commitment, but what is very unusual is that my husband has been awake since 4am.  Mr. Soundest Sleeper In The Universe is downstairs reading a book and munching on granola. I was panicking that perhaps he was ill, but he is just sharing my joy and excitement about today’s assessment. I suspect he is also somewhat stressed because he is remembering the depth of commitment required of him to care  for me after my last two bone surgeries. I know the recovery from this replacement surgery will be less brutal for me than those two emergency surgeries were, less brutal for him as well in terms of the time and energy required for him to look after me, but I understand his stress. It is difficult for him to imagine a less strenuous commitment to my care. So I am praying he will be able to relax. Poor guy…..he is worried as well because my heart murmur is always a concern for the anesthesiologist and I don’t always wake up after surgery without a bit of help. I have a few memories of post surgical nursing staff hanging onto my ankles and banging my legs together while chanting, “Susan, come baaaaaaack….”. My husband has never found that to be as amusing a situation as I have for some reason. Anyway, if you could say a little prayer for him to be able to calm down I would appreciate it, thanks. 

Good Thoughts On the Imago Dei...So True

From an author our pastor and my husband have been reading lately:

D.J.A. Clines sums up the functional understanding of the imago dei quite nicely.

Man is created not in God’s image, since God has no image of His own, but as God’s image, or rather to be God’s image, that is to deputize in the created world for the transcendent God who remains outside the world order. 

That man is God’s image means that he is the visible corporeal representative of the invisible, bodiless God; he is representative rather than representation, since the idea of portrayal is secondary in the significance of the image. However, the term “likeness” is an assurance that man is an adequate and faithful representative of God on earth. The whole man is the image of God, without distinction of spirit and body. All mankind, without distinction, are the image of God… Mankind, which means both the human race and individual men, do not cease to be the image of God so long as they remain men; to be human and to be the image of God are not separable.

It Is Probably Good That Jesus Is Not Physically Standing In Front Of Me Right Now!!

And why would that be, you may ask?  

Weeeeellll, that would be because if he was, he would be having the breath squeezed out of him by the giant bear hug I would be giving him to thank him for answering the prayers of so many on my behalf in regard to my hip replacement surgery.  Today has been a day of forward progression in that process!

This morning the phone rang and I almost didn't answer it because there was no name displayed and I didn't recognize the number, but fortunately I did answer the phone.  It was the Hip and Joint Clinic!!  Already!!  I was so shocked I almost didn't realize the woman on the other end of the phone line was telling me someone else cancelled their surgery, so I was selected to take over that person's appointment schedule!  Wha'??????  Seriously?

The woman was completely serious.  Tomorrow morning I am going for assessment with their physiotherapist and to receive some exercises to do between now and the surgery date.  Then in the middle of February I have an appointment scheduled with the actual surgeon who will meet with me to chat and set up a surgery date for this first very badly degenerated hip.  The clinic sent me an email confirmation of the dates and times and I think I am still in happy shock.  I was so stunned after I hung up the phone that I couldn't think straight for a few minutes.  hahaha I know it might sound crazy to be so over the moon delighted about being scheduled for an invasive, painful surgery, but I am very, very excited to say the least.  Looks like I MAY be able to have the first surgery before my muscle relaxants become completely ineffective as the pain increases.  Thank  you Lord and thank you clinic for choosing me and thank you faithfully praying friends and family.

Today is a good day.

It follows a brutally cold but also very good weekend!  On Saturday I planned to go to the women's breakfast at the church. I wanted to take a few items for the give away table at our Saturday luncheon for the many people in our area who are struggling to survive in this day of increasingly high rents and grocery costs and lack of addictions counselling and shelter accommodation. An indoor meal on such a day is at least a tiny bit of temporary help. In the early morning I woke up to the fresh ice covered with snow that was all over the ground and streets, saw the pile of hardened snow the plough in the parking lot had stacked up temporarily behind our car and gave up on the whole idea of going out in the nearly -40 wind chill.  How disappointing. However, another friend who was going called to offer to drive me there and I happily accepted the offer.  How lovely.  Our speaker at the breakfast was one of our own congregants who was instrumental in organizing the lunch programme and she was able to update us on how things have been going, how many folk we are working with other churches in the area to feed, and what changes we are making to help the people more than we even have been.  It was encouraging.

When the meeting ended another friend decided she and I should to go Original Joe's for lunch and that was such fun.  They make some of the worst so called "scrambled" eggs in town...second only behind Smitty's....but the rest of the breakfast dish was very good indeed with perfectly cooked bacon, lightly buttered brown toast, just the right amount of cubed potatoes....oooh, yum!!  My friend is an excellent driver in the snow and ice and was able to avoid fish tailing at every icy intersection and slipping sidways across the traffic lanes, unlike some other drivers who didn't seem to realize they should have slowed down to accommodate the dangerous road conditions. I felt quite safe with the driving of both my friends who grew up here and learned how to handle bad roads early in their driving lives.  

Sunday we had a relatively decent turn out of people for both the adult Sunday school class on Genesis and for the church service despite the horrible weather conditions.  That was encouraging. My husband got some more insights from our minister who is leading the Genesis class that will help him for his own teaching sessions in a few weeks' time.  We are studying the importance of how the book was written in the Hebrew of the day, the genres and writing styles, the surrounding culture and how we have lost a lot of that richness with our more industrial world model English translations.  I think I am going to enjoy this class and learn a lot.  Then in the service it was my turn to read the Scriptures and for once I felt confident in doing it instead of shaking in my boots the entire time I was at the lecturn.  That was a positive event.  Then my desperately hungry husband, who had forgotten once again to eat breakfast, decided that going to DarBar would get him hot food faster than us going home and being left to our own devices to cook quickly.   He announced our departure for the restaurant and away we went.  This time, along with our usual meal of leftovers to bring home, he ordered one extra dish for take out to pad out the leftovers. YAY!!!  For our $60 we are getting a total of 7 nearly full single meals.  Amazing!!  We will need to add some vegetables into tonight's dinner but we still have enough rice and meat left in the takeout boxes.  For some reason I never tire of their Indian food....something in the depth of flavours grabs me every time.

Last night, long story, we ended up "butt dialing" our daughter in law and didn't realize it. We hung up before it had a chance to ring at her end, but she noticed the call and phoned us back a few minutes later in a panic that something was wrong because it was nearly 11pm in New York. hahaha  Now we are quite thrilled that we made that mistake because we ended up having a delightful conversation with her and then our son.  It was such fun and so happily unexpected.  Glad it all happened. We slept well last night knowing they are both happy and busy with work and play.

I will report tomorrow at some point as to how the assessment went in the morning.  I feel like I received a particularly special blessing by being the person chosen to take the cancellation spots that opened up today. Wow....so grateful......

Aging.....Thoughts Written By My Favourite Christian Japanese Poet

                          I wish to grow old like a tree

      It's trunk is smooth, white and dry

In its hollow a flying-squirrel is falling into a doze

 

The branch which gives a rest to the birds and

   largely bends sideway seems to say to men,

       "Once in a while take a seat and rest"

 

    I wish to grow old like a tree

I wish to grow old without calling

       for more desires

--Tomihiro Hoshino

This Week Is Flying Past!! Zoom Zoom!!

I'm not certain what has happened to the past three days, but they have passed at lightning speed it seems!  

There have been a couple of very encouraging little things this week:  one of the most significant to me came shortly after my last post.  The next day I received communication from two different friends who had prayed for me, one in the middle of the night where she lives....at 3:30am I believe she said, she was awake and thought to pray for me.  Between the two of them and who knows how many others who read the post, God bless you all, I have been feeling much more positive, less unhappy about my health issues and generally energetic enough to get a few house chores accomplished.  It is almost like someone flipped a switch for me and we know who that Someone is, right?  Hallelujah!  I am so grateful.  Thank you friends and family.

Yesterday I was able to get to the pharmacy and order my injection meds for my osteoporosis with no problems, no hold ups, no issues with the insurance companies....not always the case so that was also an encouragement on a blustery, icy day as the warmer weather arrived.  The pharmacist could hardly believe I was able to have Exception Drug Status on a medication that is that expensive.  I am insured until part way through 2028, so I am thankful it will be awhile yet before the re-application process will have to be done. Today I was able to return to pick it up and was able to make my appointment for injection for tomorrow, after waiting less than thirty seconds for the clinic phone to be answered...no sitting around on hold AND I could get in right away tomorrow. Incredible!  Of such small details are happy days made for me. 

This morning, despite a rather strong and chilly wind, I was able to get out for coffee with my friend.  It was glorious after having so many weeks of cancellations for ill health and bad weather reasons.  We talked and talked and talked some more.

This afternoon at Bible Study my husband and I had a really good time of learning and discussion from James 3: 3-12.  We could all relate to his words of exortation and wisdom regarding the damage our own words can do to others and how to guard ourselves from hurting our fellow humans who are all made in the image of God.  It has been a life long learning process for me, the lover of sarcastic humour that other people are not used to and do not always understand.  I have unwittingly hurt quite a few folk over the years until I began to understand that sarcasm is not everyone's idea of good humour.  

After the study my husband realized the reason he was starving at 3:30 in the afternoon was due to only eating a dish of yogurt and berries for his brunch at 11am.  So, off to Bonzzini's we went so he could have a tiny pizza and a salad.  I enjoyed my Thai chicken bites...now with two dipping sauces: Thai chili sauce and a dill dip.  Simple and yummy!!  By 4:30pm we had finished our dinner, so I had to have a slightly larger snack than usual this evening at 9pm.  No, no, it wasn't huge, just a little under 2 carb units instead of my usual 1 carb unit, but I was pretty hungry and my slice of cheese bread with a light smearing of sugar free blueberry spread took care of the hunger pangs quite nicely.

Tomorrow morning our minister is coming over to finalize which sections of the adult class on Genesis 1-11 will be led by himself and which ones by my husband over the next few Sundays.  I am going to have to quickly run the duster and vaccum around the downstairs before he arrives as tinkering with the faulty furnace yesterday sent a blast of dust spewing all over everything!  The downstairs looks like it hasn't been cleaned for a month in terms of the amount of dust that blew through the vents.  I didn't get it cleaned today since I was out pretty much ALL DAY.....YIPPEE!!!!

Tonight at some point the snow is supposed to arrive and we can look forward to a couple of days of snowfall.....it has already proved impossible for us, and for all of our neighbours to locate the bottom steps off our back porches due to the amount of snow we have had to date.  Instead of going up and down 5 steps, we are reduced to 4 useable steps.  Who knows how late into the spring we will locate those bottom steps as the snow melts and softens sufficiently for us to shovel them out and use them again.  Spring thaw is going to be a soggy, mucky, puddly disaster in terms of trying to get across the back lawn to the parking lot, so I suspect we will be locating parking spots out on the street for our vehicle for most of April.  SO MUCH SNOW THIS YEAR!!  Some of the major and even a few residential streets have been sort of ploughed out, enough to see the pavement in some cases, so that is a driving treat.

My husband received an invitation to preach from a former parish for later in March.  He is delighted and I am happy for him.

Good things....thankfully....amongst the usual struggles.

If The Wait For A Hip Replacement Doesn't Cripple Me.....

 ....the other effects on my body due to this long waiting period will do me in!

I realized today that I am not okay.  While the muscle relaxants are certainly making life bearable in terms of hip deterioration pain, the lack of excercise is driving up my blood sugar despite my best dietary attempts and the strong muscle relaxant medication is starting to upset my stomach to the point where I am going to have to go back on my GERD meds tomorrow for a couple of months. Sigh....Who knew the extensive waiting time would wreak more havoc on the rest of my body than the arthritis itself?  Sigh...  Yes, if I should come to mind occasionally, your prayers would be most appreciated. At this point the actual hip issue is the least of my worries.  My tummy has been terrible all day with discomfort from THE gerd and it makes me so very tired that I am on my way to bed in a few minutes...well before 10pm.  Rats!!!  

Thank you for "listening" to my woes.

On  a much happier note, Sunday was a wonderful day for me.  My husband wasn't able to go to church, so a friend picked me up and we went together.  It was so much fun. Then we went to her place and I had a wonderful chicken curry lunch her roomie had made and the three of us had lots of laughs and conversation.  It was a lovely day and to be away from home for over 4 consecutive hours was a welcome break from the daily "stuck at home in the cold winter" monotony.  Thank you Lord and thank you friends.  My friend gave us a large container of candied whole fresh cranberries she made for us. Oh wow, they are fantastic...that slight sweetness as you pop them in your mouth followed by the slight sourness of the cranberries when you bite down....it is a fascinating flavour combination and we are enjoying them.

Today we were out most of the morning running errands in the still cold air, but it was so great to get things done. Now if we don't get out again for a couple of days that will be okay. The warm up this week is arriving later than expected, so it is still cold and there is more snow on the way overnight Wednesday when the warmer weather front finally arrives.  

Other than stomach pain, it truly has been a good day.  I helped my husband with his new exercise regime this afternoon.  He has started daily exercising and I am helping him with his form and tracking how many reps a day he is doing.  For him it is going to be  a long road back to any kind of reasonable fitness, but he is trying and that is very encouraging to us both.

My husband filled our home with the delightful smell of his home made apple cider this afternoon. The combination of the apple juice with the clove stuffed orange and cinnamon sticks boiling on our stove.....mmmmwah....such warm, homey feelings it invokes. He also made fresh grapes into jelly....and sprayed grape juice all over the kitchen accidentally when he used the sprayer nozzle on the sink taps to clean out the pot afterward. hahahahaha There were blots and splatters of grape juice all over the walls and on the sink and on the counter around the sink....hilarious!  We laughed and laughed as we cleaned it up.  Then we realized he had also spilled tea down the front of one of the kitchen cupboards earlier in the day, so more laughter as we cleaned that up as well.  hahaha!

After dinner this evening my husband brought out a rubber tub filled with old cards and notes and letters from various friends and family that he has saved over the past twenty years.  we began going through them together so I could start helping him pare the correspondence he wants to keep down to a small sized card box.  I am so proud of nostalgic, sentimental him for getting going on this project.  He was so inspired that after we did as much as we reasonably could tonight, he went out to the car and pulled out two other huge boxes of mementos he was supposed to get rid of months ago, but just wasn't quite ready to put them into the dumpster.  He hauled them both to the giant dumpster in our parking lot and hauled them up the side of it, pushed them into the bin and they are now gone. We can use the trunk of our car again!  YAY!!  Again, I am so proud of him.  Despite his current physical struggles and his long standing emotional nostalgia struggles, he has shown progressive willingness over this past year to truly start dealing with the excess amount of left over extended family "stuff". So proud of him, so very proud.

Dont' know what the next couple of days hold in terms of activity, but later in the week we have some social events to attend and that will be a ton of fun.  Looking forward to more good things as the days go by.  There....just by confessing my struggles at the start of this post, I am already feeling better! AMEN!!

Really Looking Forward To NEXT Week!!!!

 Brrrrrrr.....we are off to a great start for weekend weather with a windchill close to -40C this morning.  Temperatures will start to moderate early next week and become bearable again by Thursday by the look of the extended forecast. Oh, please may that be right!  My coffee buddy and I have had  to miss two or three Thursday morning coffee visits due to the cold weather, plus I missed three in a row when I had COVID....I am really missing our time together.  My husband isn't keen on me combining the extreme cold with the incredible amount of icy ruts on residential streets and he doesn't want my coffee buddy sliding around out there either.  Yesterday morning on his way home from his woodworking friends' place he was on a residential street with deeply rutted driving lanes, caught a back tire in the rut while his other tires were on the snowy hump between the ruts and he slid sideways for nearly a block before he could regain control of the car's movement.  It is a near miracle that he didn't hit even one of the many cars parked along the cubsides. Thank you Lord! It rather shook him up.  He is an excellent winter driver and spent most of his teen years on such roads every day, so I am far safer with him behind the wheel in these conditions than with myself.  

This morning I started taking down the Christmas decorations.  I have enjoyed them immensely this year, but am getting tired of trying to clean around them and under them and, well, it is just time even though Ephiphany doesn't happen for another day or two.  My husband will leave the outdoor lights up until Ephiphany, but later this afternoon I will strip down the tree decorations and get them repacked.  The large, knitted creche "stuffies" are all packed away now and I am looking forward to getting the tree packed away too so I can more easily access vacuuming in that corner of the living room.  For me a new year means it is time to move on and put the old rites of celebration away until the next Christmas.

Sometime next week(end) we are looking forward to getting together with one of our small groups for a movie night.  Our friends have a couple of British movies they want us to see, good humoured entertainment for us all to enjoy.  It is nice to have that to look forward to and hopefully everyone can make it. The weather should be considerably better, so that will make it even more appealing.  I am not sure we are going to enjoy our plans for this evening due to the ongoing bitter cold outside.  However, that being said, the clear sky, despite the lack of cloud cover keeping the temperature cold, also means sunshine and pretty blue.  I am enjoying the light and there is barely a breeze, so there are some pleasant side effects to this weather system.  YAY!

Tomorrow morning will be our last Sunday to sleep in a bit before the 11am church service.  Next Sunday an adult morning class on Genesis begins and my husband is team teaching with the lead pastor, so between that and the ensuing six week Lenten study my husband is leading on his own, we have a good three months or more of having to rouse ourselves early on Sundays.....ooooh, poor diddums us, hahahaha.  Since we have been sleeping in so well over the alarm-free holiday mornings, it is going to be a bit of a shock when real life intrudes once again. hahaha Gosh it is hard when reality interferes with retirement puttering and dawdling about, eh? hahaha

Enjoy your weekend and keep warm and safe wherever you are!

First Test Of A New Year Resolution

I'm not big on making New Year Resolutions, in fact I think the last time I attempted such a thing was back in....maybe the 1980s?  However this year I did have an unspoken decision I made a couple of months ago to ring in the new year by walking away, backing off, whatever term you prefer, from people who are not that fascinated about spending time with us, or perhaps me in particular.  I find that the older I get the more discerning I become as to who is spending time with me for alternate reasons than actually preferring or enjoying having me as a companion.  My level headed and discerning husband, who sees quite clearly what is going on, assures me I am not being paranoid about this.

So, only three days into the new year I passed my first test:  lately it seems there are a handful of aquaintances who have taken to inviting us to fill in last minute at various events when a first choice is unable to make it after all.  We haven't really minded being in this "always a bridesmaid, never a bride" position most of the time, but today it happened again, first time this year and considering the surrounding circumstances with this particular group of people,which I won't go into here, after I talked to my husband about it we responded that we would not attend.

I haven't felt this freedom from social burden for a number of months now.  There has been a bit of a dark cloud hovering over this particular situation and the other people involved in it for the past few months and whatever game they are playing I am not going to play it with them any more.  They are lovely folk, don't get me wrong, but I know we, me in particular, are just too different in our way of life and our ideas.  We will always be the couple held in reserve for the times when someone else can't make it to whatever event is being planned and that is okay actually, we are not offended by that, but we have decided that we too would prefer to spend time with people on our own "bride rather than bridesmaid" list.  In fact we don't have a "bridesmaid" list and that in itself is a good thing for us.  If the "bride" can't make it then we cancel our plans. It feels more honest to us than allowing people to  think they are important and then discovering later they were second choice.  

On the one hand being on the second choice list is not a big deal, as it indicates there is some sort of positive relationship there, but on the other hand life is short and I really want to spend what is left of it with people who choose me, not just put up with me as a filler for an unexpectedly empty seat at the table. I appreciate people who are honest enough to just come right out and admit we were invited only because someone else originally invited canceled and when that has been the case in the past we have always accepted the invitation because the honesty means a tremendous lot to us.  It is when our second choice status is deliberately hidden....to protect our feelings or assuage the host's unnecessary guilt....I am never sure, which is why I am uncomfortable about accepting such an invitation.

I feel quite fine with this resolution. Thus far it seems it is going to be quite freeing for me/us.

Loving’ The Spontaneous Invitations!

We were blessed with a spontaneous dinner invitation on Monday and at 4:30pm today we got a phone call from another friend who had a fresh pot of chowder waiting for us to “come over in 45 minutes” to eat it with her and her husband. Well, you don’t have to ask us twice! Hohoho!! The food and the conversation were both wonderful. We are blessed. What a treat.

The mashed potatoes and panko pork chops we were going to prepare here tonight will be prepared tomorrow night instead. Just the veggies to figure out.

A Repost from 2011

 Thirteen years ago we were living in a very small town and had a difficult time connecting with the townspeople.  In light of some of the excellent plays and concerts we have had the privilege of attending here with friends and family over the past year, I decided that the following would be my repost for this New Year.  Some of you will have read it before, but for those of you who have not, if you have never been a city person displaced in a teeny prairie town, trust me, the following description is all too true!  It makes me all the more thankful for the friends we DID make there....eventually.....and some of them are still in touch, for which we are most grateful!

A prairie concert evening

This happened last fall but it is too good not to share. We escaped the house and got out to a concert!!  A couple who have just joined the "Buy a Foreclosure Condo in Palm Springs" crowd couldn't use their tickets due to being away at their aforementioned condo, so we went to hear Dave Carroll of Eastern Canada.  He and 2 of his band members did a great job.  He is an excellent song writer and composer but is currently best known for his YouTube trilogy about when his guitar was broken by United Airlines baggage handlers back in 2008:  United Breaks Guitars et al. We had a very good time enjoying the music, but the best part for me was that a few people we have met lately were there to visit with at intermission and afterward.  Aaaaaah, at last..........a SOCIAL EVENT!!!  We were up until 1am debriefing and eating hamburgers. haha  Yeah..........we need to get a life...........seriously..........the only bad part was after the concert.  We decided to support the man by purchasing a CD.  He was signing them and this was apparently a huge deal for some of our aquaintances.  They were lined up 3 deep around Mr. Carroll and suddenly I got pushed forward (because I am their clergyman's sainted wife) to have my CD signed.  Being very shy actually, although there are some of you who won't believe that, my main thought was:  Where is God with a lightning bolt to strike me dead when I most need it????
 
 "Oh, aren't you getting it signed?"
 "Umm...no...." 
"Oh no, you HAVE to get it signed!!  Mr. Carroll is right here signing them.  He will sign it for you." 
"Ummm...no, it's okay actually." 
"Come on come on.....here you go next in line, you go next in line!"
"Mr. Carroll, Mr. Carroll, this lady is next up!"
"Oh, um, okay then.......if it takes the attention off me I will have it signed now.....um, thank you Mr. Carroll.........um, my name?  Um, it is Susan....no, SUSAN.....no, SUSAN!!"  (now AKA The Elderly, Hollering Embarrassedly, Groupie who wants to sink through the floor and die....big sigh....)  "Oh, umm, gee, a big message here on my CD.....'it is a pleasure to meet you Susan, love Dave'..........oh, um....it is a pleasure to meet yourself as well.  Yes, yes I AM with that man in the clergy collar actually........oh, your step grandfather was an Anglican clergyman....oh how interesting...........well....how 'bout that eh?   Yes, um.........well we have lived here 9 months now.......yes, we have.....um......from Moose Jaw of late.....oh, you and the band stayed in Moose Jaw last night....well, isn't that fascinating.....yes, um......well, thanks for the autograph........okay, um...well...... enjoy the rest of your road tour.  Oh, 6 concerts in 7 days in the prairies here........yes that is very interesting...um, well, 'bye now.  Um....thanks again.....um......'bye..." 
"There now, wasn't that fun??  He TALKED to you!!!  Isn't that NICE??" 
"Umm....yeah that was nice.  Dell we need to go home.......yes NOW!  I prefer to slash my wrists in private....." 

It was actually a repeat of earlier in the evening when we had tried to hand in our tickets and get a programme and choose seats:
Usher #1:  "Oh, did you sign up for the intermission draw  for one of  three door prizes?"  
"Um......no.....actually we have enough doors at our house...........um...........hohoho?" 
Blank stare.  "But did you sign up for the intermission draw for one of three door prizes?"
"No, I think we will just go and get our seats now."
 Usher #2: "Oh, I don't think you signed up for the intermission draw for one of 3 door prizes did you?"
 "No, really that is fine, I don't need a door prize." 
All together now Ushers: "But you can't win one of 3 door prizes if you don't sign up for the intermission draw." 
This followed by capitulation on my part as I signed up for the intermission draw for one of 3 door prizes, of which I won a total of zero.........as expected.  People here sure don't want complete strangers like ourselves to miss out on anything.  Sigh.........I am learning to just do as I am told here.  It saves the embarrassment of repeated requests that draw attention from curious onlookers............sigh...........just another of those joys of small town living............I realize that these people want only the best for me but I think for future events I will borrow Harry Potter's Cloak of Invisiblity! Have a great day rejoicing that you live where you live!

Sunshine At Long Last!!!

 The sun is shining this morning....what a thrill after New Years Day's gloom!!!  Makes me want to go and start the car and go somewhere.....exceeeeeeeept....well....it is blasted cold outside today and going to get colder as the afternoon and evening wear on until we get to about -30C overnight.  I am glad it is my husband and not me who has to get up early tomorrow morning and have his meeting with our young, budding woodworker friend!  I will stay home for yet another day and do laundry!  I know that doesn't sound like much fun, but compared to heading out into the bitter cold, teeth chattering all the way over to the friend's house after insufficiently warming the car before leaving home, the exercise I will get going up and down stairs in my chilly but not freezing cold suite actually sounds pretty great!!

Robert Frost had winter "nailed" in some of his short poems about the trials of the winter weather.

 

The joys: 

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow 

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

 

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

 

The stresses:

STORM FEAR

When  the wind works against us in the dark,

And pelts with snow

The lower-chamber window on the east,

And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,

The beast,

"Come out!  Come out!"--

It costs me no inward struggle not to go,

Ah, no!

I count our strength,

Two and a child,

Those of us not asleep subdued to mark

How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length--

How drifts are piled,

Dooryard and road ungraded,

Till even the comforting barn grows far away,

And my heart owns a doubt

Whether 'tis in us to arise with day

And save ourselves unaided.

 

The humour in an arriving spring:

A PATCH OF OLD SNOW

There's a patch of old snow in a corner,

     That I should have guessed

Was a blow-away paper the rain

     Had brought to rest. 

 

It is speckled with grime as if

     Small print overspread it,

The news of a day I've forgotten--

    If I ever read it. 

Hope it is beautifully sunny wherever you reside on this second day of 2025.